


what is all else to us?

by anderfels



Series: what stranger miracles [8]
Category: Red Dead Redemption (Video Games)
Genre: Aftercare, Anal Fingering, Animal Attack, Animal Death, Anxiety, Anxiety Attacks, Bad Flirting, Bad Puns, Banter, Bathing/Washing, Bathtub Sex, Bathtubs, Blood, Blood and Injury, Body Hair, Body Image, Body Worship, Canon Compliant, Canon Era, Canon Universe, Canon-Typical Behavior, Canon-Typical Violence, Canonical Character Death, Caretaking, Character Study, Chronic Pain, Come Shot, Comfort, Competence Kink, Consent, Developing Relationship, Doubt, Edgeplay, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Established Relationship, Explicit Consent, Explicit Language, Facial Shaving, Falling In Love, Fear, Fishing, Flirting, Fluff, Friendship, Friendship/Love, Gen, Grinding, Guilt, Hand Jobs, Harm to Animals, Healing, Horseback Riding, Horses, Hotel Sex, Hotels, Humor, Hunters & Hunting, Hurt/Comfort, Injury, Internal Conflict, Internalised ableism, Internalized Homophobia, Intimidation, Jealousy, Kissing, Lazy Mornings, Love, Love Bites, Love Confessions, M/M, Massage, Memories, Mild Hurt/Comfort, Morning After, Morning Cuddles, Naked Cuddling, Near Death Experiences, Nightmares, Nudity, Orgasm Control, Orgasm Delay, Orgasm Delay/Denial, Orgasm Denial, Panic Attacks, Past Violence, Period Typical Attitudes, Physical Disability, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Praise Kink, Prostate Massage, Psychological Trauma, Resolved Sexual Tension, Self Confidence Issues, Self-Doubt, Self-Esteem Issues, Self-Indulgent, Sexual Content, Sexual Humor, Sharing a Bed, Sharing a Room, Shaving, Spelunking, Teasing, Threats, Trauma, Triggers, Unresolved Emotional Tension, Unresolved Romantic Tension, Unresolved Sexual Tension, Vacation, there's only one bed!!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-24
Updated: 2020-07-22
Packaged: 2021-01-02 13:07:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 76,141
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21162146
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anderfels/pseuds/anderfels
Summary: “Figured you’d be wanting it back sometime,” Charles says softly, and presses his lips tight together around the threat of a smile, reaching across the small gap between them as they ride to pass Arthur his hat. Slightly battered, and very worn, but uniquely precious, as only a man’s hat can be.“Guess since this is your first real ride out...well. A good cowboy needs his hat.”Still healing from his ordeal with the O'Driscolls, Arthur goes fishing with Kieran, then he and Charles finally get a few days to themselves after tracking one of Strauss' debtors in Strawberry.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> hi all! a teeny tiny update for you guys (just to give you something to read!) starring the legendary bluegill, kieran, and arthur being a dick older brother.
> 
> also, an apology, which i'll leave to the end.

_(Hark close, and still, what I now whisper to you,_

_I love you—-O you entirely possess me,_

_O I wish that you and I escape from the rest, and go utterly off—O free and lawless,_

_Two hawks in the air—two fishes swimming in the sea not more lawless than we;)_

“Who’d’ve thought it?”

Water laps at Arthur’s boots, sucking dirt from worn soles. He dips his toes in the shallows, scattering loose pebbles from the shoreline, swirling with sand and silt. The lake is crystal, sparkling glass, disturbed only by skidding beetles and water boatmen, drifting through the sky’s reflected clouds, like herds of wayward sheep beneath the surface. “Thought what?” he asks, lifting his head.

“Well...wasn’t that long ago I was tied to the back of your horse. Beggin’ for mercy,” Kieran says shyly, voice wobbling in wan humour.

He levels a slanted grin across the beach, standing a few yards down from where Arthur has perched himself on a rock, fishing pole balanced between his dangling legs. “Now we’re off fishin’ together. Who’d’ve thought?”

A huff, and Arthur shifts his weight, hand steady on his rod’s reel, lazily winding the line in. The lure rakes through the water; a miniature craft, the sun glittering in its gentle wake.

With a languid slowness, Arthur drags his eyeline across to Kieran, leering darkly beneath his eyebrows. “How d’you know I ain’t just lookin’ for a good place to __drown__ you?” he asks, and lets his voice scrape into a low growl, smirk turning sly.

“Because I- B-Because-”

Kieran blinks from down the beach, momentarily forgetting about his own rod. His face falls long, wispy moustache sliding from his lips like a shot squirrel from a branch. “I s-saved your life, Arthur!”

“You keep sayin’ that,” Arthur snarls, staring, flint-sharp. “But, see, I save __your__ life every day I don’t kill you. So we are __more__ than even on that front.”

“You don’t mean that...”

“Oh you better believe I mean it, boy.”

“C’mon Arthur! You don’t mean tha-”

A splash, and Kieran’s rod is jerked forward, almost completely out of his hands. He stumbles, rights his balance, pulls the rod back and up- But whatever fish had struck the hook is long gone, float bobbing sadly back to the water’s surface as Kieran frowns from the shore.

Arthur’s laughing. Grin splitting his face, the stony expression shatters into gravelly laughter, teeth bared in humour, not threat. “Of course I don’t mean it,” he says, chuckling as Kieran gapes at him, realising he’s being teased. “You gotta stop fallin’ for that, that’s like the dozenth time this week.”

“W-Well, excuse me for- For takin’ threats of- Of bodily harm serious!”

“If I was hankerin’ to harm you, you’d’ve known about it by now, I tell you, kid.”

“Oh, that’s real- Real reassuring, thank you, t-truly,” Kieran snaps, forlornly reeling in his limp line. “You- You yourself told me not to trust none of you boys-”

“True, but trust __me__, I ain’t diggin’ no grave for you, my friend,” Arthur says brightly, still snickering to himself. “You ever dug a grave? Shit. Hell on your back, your knees- Hardly worth killin’ the feller you killed in the first place, ‘cause you’re the one ends up dead on your feet.”

Deadpan, Kieran fixes new bait to his recovered hook, skewering a cricket from his tackle box as he scowls across at Arthur. “You’re very funny, Arthur. Very- Very funny. I saved your life, and now you torture me. Jokin’ about like that. Ho ho ho.”

“Ain’t my fault you’re so easy to wind up. Keeps an old bastard young.”

Huffing, Kieran simply recasts his line, shaking his head. The water ripples outwards from where the float lands, shimmering blue to mirror the morning sky. It’s still early. In the east, the sun has barely crested the forests surrounding Clemens Point, and the air is yet cool enough to be comfortable, busy with flies and insects above the water’s surface.

They fish in companionable silence for a while longer, Kieran surprisingly stoic when his nerves don’t compel him to talk, face tight in concentration as he watches the gentle bobbing motion of his line’s float. Arthur in turn enjoys the peace he often finds in fishing, content to watch the morning and its waking colours, its chorus of herons and cormorants, vocal frogs lurking in the bulrushes.

It’s a nice spot. Not a mile from camp; south around the Point, where the lake forms a miniature bay. The waters are calm in the small inlet, collecting flotsam from further out, dead logs and drifting plant matter an ideal habitat for wildlife, not exclusively the fish.

Arthur sighs, unhurried, and watches the fluid shapes of silvery shad flit around his feet where the toes of his boots touch the water. Dark minnows lurk in the recesses of a nearby root structure, embedded in the silt with other debris, scales flashing through patches of refracted sunlight, catching Arthur’s eyes when they dart beneath the surface.

A pretty enough corner of Lemoyne. And the company isn’t so bad either, even if Kieran seems an unlikely friend. Perhaps it is just a lingering feeling of guilt on Arthur’s part that brings them together, Arthur isn’t sure, but the kid’s not a bad sort, O’Driscoll heritage considered. Harmless. 

“So,” Arthur says, and jerks his rod back, flicking the line in the water. Ripples flow outwards, mimicking the flit and skip of insects on the surface. “Who taught you how to fish?”

“My pappy mostly, but- Well,” Kieran says, giving a half-hearted shrug. “I lost my mammy and pappy when I was young. To cholera.”

“Your ‘mammy and pappy’?”

“Like I said, I was real young. Maybe...couple years older than uh- Than young Jack.”

He shrugs again, looking out at his line. “After that, I was on my own pretty much. But I knew horses. And fishing.”

“Huh,” Arthur says, steadily winding the reel. Then, “Guess same sorta happened to me. My ma passed when I was young. Don’t remember her much. Wish I did.”

Pausing his reeling, Arthur scratches his chin. His facial hair is full enough to qualify as a proper beard now, a patchy carpet of prickles, thick and frequently itchy. The thought of trying to shave however is still daunting, sure his injured left shoulder won’t accommodate the movement necessary. It’s a two hand job if you want to keep your skin mostly intact. Visiting a barber is the obvious solution, yet that too seems far too big a task for his mind to cope with. Having to go into town, talk to a barber, sit and stare at himself in an offensively large and obnoxiously sincere mirror; he’d rather just put up with the beard.

Perhaps he’ll feel able next week, or the week after that. Perhaps he’ll leave it to grow indefinitely, until it reaches his belt, a permanent and ugly reminder of his inability to take the most basic care of himself.

“What about your pa?” Kieran asks, curious. A second passes, Arthur’s expression visibly tangling as if pulled by thread, eyebrows snagged into a frown.

“Watched the bastard hang. I was...fourteen or so. Not soon enough.”

Silent, Kieran just flicks his gaze back to his float, his own features knotted in apprehension. It’s clearly a loaded topic. 

“Hosea taught me fishing,” Arthur says then, tone brighter once more.

He starts reeling again, the spool clicking in slow metallic rhythm, like a music box without the melody. Lyle Morgan had taught him little in the way of life skills, unless robbing counted as such. Perhaps it did, for him. By the time he reached a double digit age, Arthur was proficient in stealing, robbing, pickpocketing, beating those who resisted being robbed, beating those who seemed likely to report having been robbed, thieving, robbing, and robbing some more. Fatherly advice, if offered, was limited to not crying when he met the back of Lyle’s hand or the strap of his belt, and ducking when a whiskey bottle inevitably hit the wall, lest he catch it with his face. Sound advice, at the time, but hardly deserving of much gratitude.

Hosea has been a better father than Lyle ever could have been.

“You been with… With Dutch since then?” Kieran says, looking over. “And Hosea?”

“Sure. Thereabouts. Couple years alone, then Dutch...figured I could be useful, I guess.”

Arthur shrugs his good shoulder, the left still closer to useless than not. Gauze dressing pulls beneath his shirt, strapped across his breast as it has been for so long, snagged in his chest hair, the bulk obvious and unwieldy. His hand drops briefly from the reel, absently rubbing where the dressing covers his wound. Healing. Slowly, as he is.

“Coulda fell in with any gang, to tell the truth,” Arthur continues, resuming the mechanical winding of the line. “Coulda been an O’Driscoll ‘fore you was even a glint in your pappy’s eye. How old’re you anyway? Twelve?”

Scowling, Kieran rolls his eyes. “Twenty five.”

“At least twelve.”

“And I told you fellers a hundred times,” Kieran says, indignant hand gesturing by his side. “I’d only been with ‘em a couple months. Just a runner. Helpin’ out with the horses mainly.” He jerks his line, flicking it in the water. “Bottom rung of the ladder.”

“And to think that was the high point of your career.”

“Shut up,” Kieran says, and Arthur snickers approvingly, dry and low like a squawking bird. “Colm goes through men like cigars. They ain’t like...you folks. Doubt he even knew my name.”

Looking out at the water, Arthur nods. He’d experienced Colm’s apathy firsthand, and doesn’t consider it much of a compliment that Colm knows his name over the names of his own men.

“I’m more Kieran van der Linde than Kieran O’Driscoll at this point. Honest to God.” Arthur chuckles again, shaking his head. It’s not the most catchy name. “But mostly, I’m j-just… I’m Kieran Duffy.”

“There’s only one Van der Linde in this world, kid, and that’s plenty,” Arthur says, shrugging his right shoulder once more. “I’d stick with bein’ Kieran Duffy.”

“Y-Yeah.”

Silent for a while, Kieran simply watches the water, slowly reeling his line. Arthur does the same until it’s time to recast, shifting slightly on his rock to pick a new spot to try, more to his right. He waits, looking for movement.

There’s a splash some yards out. Both of them snap to look. Sluicing through the water is a dark and slender tail, a glimpse just caught as spray arcs upwards, a silver fish disappearing beneath the clouded surface.

“Was- What was that?” Kieran calls, standing on his tiptoes to try to see. “It looked huge!”

“Shh, shh- Lemme see-”

Unspooling some line, Arthur recasts, colourful lure coming to rest near where the fish had surfaced. He reels slowly, and waits.

Somehow, even the birds seem to hold their breath, the herons wading in the shallows across the bay falling silent to watch, insects pausing their humming, the water stilling around Arthur’s toes.

With a sharp tug, his rod is jerked forward, and he instinctively pulls up and back, knowing he’s struck a fish. The line instantly veers, Arthur having to grip the rod with both hands, sure his left alone won’t have the strength to keep hold. Darting, diving, the lure struggles to stay floating on the surface, and Arthur struggles to remain seated, gritting his teeth as the line cuts through the water, erratic, caught and running.

“Is it that monster?” Kieran chirps, abandoning his own rod to hurry over to Arthur, eyes wide. “Did you get it?”

“Not sure,” Arthur says, teeth bared in effort, letting the reel unwind just enough to loosen the tension before he clamps it still again, refusing to give more line than necessary. “It’s a fighter, whatever it is.”

Roiling and twisting, whatever he has hooked again shows its tail fin, flipping over in the water in its fight to free itself. Line pulled, first one way, then another, Arthur gets to his feet in the shallows around his rock seat, bracing his body, water sloshing up around the tops of his boots. He digs his heels into soft silt and holds his chest firm, grunting as the line suddenly slackens, the fish momentarily tiring and going still. At once he starts to wind the reel, steady, instinctively balancing the tension in the rod and line, wary of it snapping with such a strong fish caught at the other end.

A splash of white spray, and the fish again erupts into violent struggle, tailfin slicing up and crashing back down, the lure disappearing as it dives. Arthur swears, breath hissing, Kieran staring out at the wobbling float, the wake pulled through the water like a plough through earth. “It’s strong-”

“You got this, Arthur,” Kieran says, transfixed in eager anticipation, like he’s watching a great race or daredevil show, rather than the comparatively mundane art of fishing. “R-Reel him in, slow and steady.”

Just twenty yards out, the fish again surfaces, throwing itself like a bucking horse, contorting its silvery body however it can. The sunlight catches its scales, a dark and spiny dorsal fin, before it dives again, and Arthur rakes the hook in the opposite direction, rod creaking as it flexes. “Come on,” Arthur growls, voice crunched between both jaws.

Tired for another moment, the fish stops struggling, weakening fast, and Arthur reels the spool of line, jerking back on the rod to make up another few feet. The water shallows, shelves of silt and collected debris evening out towards the shore, and the fish becomes visible beneath the surface, a twisting, shimmering shape, refracted by the scattered light, seemingly in multiple places at once.

It fights again, but its strength is waning, and Kieran hurries closer, wading out a few steps as the fish is dragged in, writhing weakly in the silt, muddying the water as Arthur pulls.

Another few feet. Kieran stoops to better see, Arthur swearing and snapping beside him, wrestling with the reel, the aching rod, tense and tired. Finally, with one decisive pull, the fish is hauled up out of the water in a splash of spray, still writhing as it fights its last, dangling on Arthur’s hook and bundled into Kieran’s waiting hands. 

“You got it!” he cries, and cradles the twitching fish in both palms, careful of its erect dorsal spines. “Oh __wow__, amazing.”

It’s a handsome bluegill, the largest Arthur’s ever seen, a good four pounds in weight and over a foot from tail to mouth. Dark fins frame his flat body, striped in blue and green with a stark spot behind the gills. An intricate mosaic of scales glistens as it weakly struggles in Kieran’s hold, Arthur’s lure caught by its mouth, hook embedded deep through the flesh.

“Look at you,” Arthur says, more than slightly out of breath. “You, sir, are a fish,” he laughs, wheezing, and sets his rod down, cautiously detaching the barbed hook from the fish’s cheek. “You fought well partner, but I gotcha.”

“Look at the size of him! I ain’t never seen a bluegill so big, have you?”

“Can’t say I have.”

“Wow. Sure wish I was the one to catch him.”

Arthur claps him on the back, apologetic. “Sorry, kid. You ain’t known for your luck, to be honest.”

“Yeah,” Kieran answers, and chuckles, puffing almost as much as Arthur as they wade the short distance back to the shoreline, the fish held carefully in both his hands. “Guess not.”

The horses are grazing in a patch of shade just beyond the beach, sheltered from the morning sun by a canopy of oaks. Kieran’s mare Branwen looks up to him as the pair approaches, and a few yards from her is Old Belle, Karen’s grey Nokota - lent to Arthur while Magpie is still unfit for riding. Grateful for the shade despite the relative cool of morning, the two of them share some water once they reach the horses, and Kieran helps wrap the fish and secure it in Belle’s saddlebags, a giddy sort of smile on his face throughout.

“Should we head back?” Kieran asks, when the equipment is packed up, tackle secured and rods folded away. He looks like he’s caught the sun on his cheeks, flop hat perched atop his head, the pale material highlighting the red shade of his face. “Must be time for some kinda breakfast.”

“Sure, why not-”

Arthur pauses, listening. The horses hear it too, and lift their heads, ears pricked towards the rustling sound of hoofbeats, advancing through the trees.

A second later, Taima’s dark head appears from between the blackjack oaks, and Arthur momentarily forgets how to breathe. Charles seems to have that effect on him. One day it’ll probably give him a heart attack, knowing his luck.

“Gentlemen,” Charles says, trotting up to their patch of shady shore. He sits heavily and Taima slows to a stop, nickering quietly as she takes her reins from his hold, stretching her neck down.

“Mister Smith!” Kieran calls, hand raised in greeting. “Charles, I mean, s-sorry, I know you said to call you-”

Simply waving his hand in reply, Charles’ lips pull ever so slightly, tweaked at the corner into his understated smile. He dismounts Taima, leg swung back over her croup and caught somewhere around Arthur’s tonsils where his breath gets stuck, eyes automatically drawn to the curve of his thigh, the swathe of his chest bared by the several undone buttons at the top of his shirt. It’s the purplish one that Arthur likes, a colour somewhere between mulberry and maroon.

Smiling as a reflex, before he even remembers he needs oxygen to stay alive, Arthur attempts to look nonchalant, leaning casually towards Belle as if to check her stirrup leather. The round swell of his cheeks gives him away, rosy like ripe apples, but he suspects Charles wouldn’t have been fooled in the slightest anyway.

“Hey,” Charles says, voice like honey, like sugar turning to caramel in the bottom of a pan, thick and golden.

“Hey,” Arthur replies, voice comparatively ragged to his own ears, the bray of a mule to Charles’ singing nightingale. Underbaked, like he’s just got out of bed and hasn’t quite woken up.

That’s true, however; Kieran did co-opt him into an obscenely early start, and Arthur had only been awake at such a miserable time of morning because he had to piss, so it’s hardly his fault he looks like a cold plate of leftovers. Still. Just once he’d like to feel like he deserves the look Charles gives him, as though he’s a wildflower growing on a battlefield, a solitary star amongst a sky of opaque cloud. It’s hard to feel worthy of that, despite how bright and boldly Charles insists.

He approaches them, absently patting Taima’s flank, and stretches his shoulders back. The buttons on his shirt protest, pulled tight across his - frankly ridiculous, in Arthur’s opinion - chest, and Arthur forgets nonchalance completely, affection, trust, comfort, all swelling within him like a rising tide. Charles smiles at him, properly, warm as the sun is, rising to the east, and Arthur almost doesn’t care that Kieran is with them, close to kissing him without a second thought. How did such a wondrous feeling become so familiar?

“Catch anything?”

“Sure did. O’Driscoll Boy ain’t such a bad angler.”

“O-Okay, now you’re just doin’ it to mess with me, I know-

“Seeing as you consider yourself a very bad angler,” Charles says, matter-of-fact, raising an eyebrow at Arthur, “He must be good.”

Animated once more at the talk of their catch, Kieran all but bounces to Belle’s saddlebags, eager to show Charles their bluegill, wrapped in hessian for the return journey. “One mighty fine bluegill,” he says, showing Charles the fish, its bulging eye staring disconcertingly up at him, lifeless. “You ever seen a more handsome fish? Must be at least four pounds, I reckon, maybe even five! Though, Arthur caught ‘im is the truth of it, I was just…”

“Supervisin’,” Arthur says.

Charles doesn’t have much of an opinion on fish in general. Good source of protein, if no other meat is available. Not his favourite. Yet he admires the bluegill all the same, testing its weight in his hands at Kieran’s insistence. The pair of them are proud of it, and so Charles is too, even if he himself doesn’t really understand the appeal. “Good job,” he says, genuine, handing the parcelled fish back to Kieran. “You sending it to Mister Gill?”

“Sure,” Arthur says, with his one-shouldered shrug. “Odd feller that one. But he’s paid up so far, so why not?”

“You want me to send it?” Kieran asks, from Belle’s other side, peering over her saddle to address them, the fish rewrapped in his arms. “I-I can take it into Rhodes, if you- If you...tell me the address, I- I can’t write it but- Well, Arthur said you was headin’ out, so, if you’re busy with other diversions, I don’t mind-”

Arthur glances at Charles. Charles shrugs.

“Sure,” Arthur says again. “That’d...be fine, kid, thanks.”

With the bluegill repacked in Branwen’s saddlebags, and the address of the shack on the northern shore of Flat Iron Lake drilled into Kieran’s memory, repeated under his breath like a mantra, Kieran rides out, leaving Charles and Arthur alone amongst the trees. The horses return to the shaded grass, flicking tails the only sound as Branwen’s hoofbeats die away through the woods, and the clearing falls to easy quiet, just the water rushing softly in the background.

Charles turns, and Arthur smiles at him, crooked, cheeks overgrown with his scruffy beard, and still so handsome. “Morning,” Charles says, voice low, stepping closer.

“Mornin’.”

“Missed you.”

“I know, I’m sorry,” Arthur says, rubbing absently at his chin.

He shuffles his weight, still plagued by pain, disguising the frown of discomfort with concentration as he pretends to check Belle’s saddle again. It’s tolerable now, for the most part. At least when he doesn’t over-exert himself. “Didn’t wanna wake you, it was so early. You been up all kinds of hours with my nonsense lately-”

Charles raises an eyebrow, ready to retort, but Arthur continues, filling space with speaking. “Kieran was there gettin’ ready and he asked if I’d wanna come with, and you know I can’t resist a fishin’ trip.”

“I know,” Charles says, fond.

“And first we was back there a-ways, set up nice, close to camp, so I was thinkin’ you’d see us, but then this naked feller appears, swimmin’ in from the lake all lackadaisical like-”

“A- What?”

“Naked as a boiled chicken, talkin’ about how the water’s real fine, just...everythin’ out!” Arthur says, gesticulating around his belt buckle for emphasis. “Like there ain’t...pike and bowfin and sturgeon and all sorta nasty bitin’ fish out here! Thought __I__ was a fool. I got nothin’ on that feller.”

Charles snickers his laughter, caught up in his throat as he tries to hold it back, smile twisting his mouth.

“Imagine just- Dangling- I don’t know. That ain’t the kinda tackle you want on a fishing trip. But I guess it’s his prick’s funeral.”

Charles laughs again, a full-bodied bark, the kind of laugh Arthur reckons is rarely, if ever, shown to other people. It’s contagious, and he loves it. “Anyway,” Arthur says, chuckling himself. “The naked feller said we oughta try over here, on account of some real big fish he’d seen - that ain’t ate his prick yet, obviously - so we...took the advice of the naked stranger. Which sounds dumb as all Hell now I’m sayin’ it out loud-”

“It kinda does.”

“But we got that bluegill, and I ain’t never seen one that big, so. Turned out good. Kid seemed happy.”

Stepping close, Charles rests his hand on Arthur’s waist, and watches flecks of sunlight move over his cheeks, dappled by the shifting canopy above them. The bruising above his eyebrow has gone, leaving only a new scar in its wake. Many of his injuries have healed. Only the less visible ones remain.

“Good,” he says, warm with the residual laughter, rich in his voice like an extra layer of paint, and holds Arthur’s gaze for a while, just smiling the simplest smile. He really does meet the strangest people.

Then, like the wind has changed, Arthur’s expression crumples, flickering into itself like paper catching light. “Shit, did I make us late to leave?” he asks, frowning at once. “I know it’s a long ride, I shoulda said- I’m sorry. Here I am wastin’ time fishing and we shoulda been on the road already-”

Charles hums. “Nothing that makes you happy is a waste of time.”

Arthur’s eyes widen. He blinks, and smiles, snorting through his nose. “Damn it, Charles.”

“I mean it.”

“I know you do, that’s the trouble, you’re-“ He waves his hand, Charles bringing him closer in his arms, delighting in how pink starts to colour the tips of Arthur’s ears, just visible past the unkempt scruff of his hair. “Really just- Out here makin’ a feller feel- All- Daft.”

“Daft? You?”

“I was never daft til you happened,” Arthur protests, attempting to sound accusing, though he’s about as convincing as painting a mule and calling it a zebra. “I was a respectable, emotionless sort of bastard. Never felt hard enough about nothin’ in order to be daft.”

“Uh huh.”

“Makin’ me all fuzzy and dumb so early in the morning. Ain’t proper.”

“It’s a talent,” Charles says softly, and brushes a lock of Arthur’s hair back from his forehead, the sunlight making it look almost blonde, burnishing the brown like gilded polished oak, like autumn leaves, gold and bronze.

The touch captures Arthur’s gaze, eyes slinking up to look back at him, faux-indignance giving way to a smirk of amusement as Charles lets his hand drop to Arthur’s cheek, openly admiring. A deep affection sits between them, familiar now, resting comfortably in the cradle of a simple embrace, and Arthur just admires Charles in return, the morning tiredness beneath his eyes, the easy slope of his mouth slanted in that tiny smile, the errant strands of hair that just touch his cheekbones, too short to be caught by the band at the nape of his neck. “Think I deserve a good morning kiss as recompense,” he says softly, and Charles sighs a songbird’s chuckle, rustling like butterflies through the nettle leaves.

“Been waiting for you to ask.”

Leaning down, Charles pauses just before he meets Arthur’s lips, and halts, eyelashes heavy, watching his expression melt, like he’s sinking into a much-longed for bath, the weight of day oozing from tired muscles. Already having shut his eyes, Arthur blinks them open when no kiss is forthcoming, and Charles chuckles again at the look on his face before finally meeting him, burying his smile in Arthur’s own.

They spend a moment together, Charles’ thumb brushing through Arthur’s beard, feeling every hair prickle sharp against his skin, a rough carpet from chin to cheek. There’s little breeze despite how close they are to the water, so the only sounds come from the grazing horses beside them, and the insects in the undergrowth, the whisper of fabric as Arthur wraps his arms around Charles’ waist, and hums a gentle sigh against his lips, content and satisfied just to be alone with him. For a moment, at least.

A heron hoots as it passes overhead, and Arthur breaks the kiss with another soft breath, pressing a few more trailing pecks to Charles’ lips as he pulls away, slinking reluctantly from his arms like a cat prodded from its favourite windowsill. “Better’n coffee to wake a feller up,” he says quietly, and catches Charles’ smirk in reply as he steps back towards Taima. “So...shoal-d we get going?” 

Charles deadpans. “Was that a fish pun?”

“Gill-ty as charged,” Arthur says, and bursts out laughing at the look on Charles’ face, hands unmoving on Taima’s stirrup leathers. “Okay, sorry, I couldn’t resist.”

“Couldn’t resist the oppor-tuna-ty?”

With a snort, Arthur laughs again, and Charles can’t help his own chuckle, admiring the creases around Arthur’s eyes, the lopsided grin he gives to Belle, laughter crackling in his throat. “You’re somethin’ else, Mister Smith,” he says fondly, glancing across at him, sun shining gold in his hair.

Charles hums his laughter, rumbling, and Taima burrs as she lifts her head, almost as if she’s sharing in his affection, happy to see him happy. The past weeks have been anything but; all of them are glad for moments of lightness, of smiles, beneath the dappled canopy of the forest in the morning, stargazing beside each other on Arthur’s cot at night. Wherever they are found.

Taima’s tack is checked over, and Arthur does the same to Belle’s before he pulls her stirrups down, pausing by her left side. He sighs, barely audible. The ride ahead will be long, and his shoulder is already aching more than usual thanks to the impromptu fishing session.

“Want a hand?”

“I’m good,” Arthur says, concentrating. “Thanks. It should be-”

He sets his left foot in the stirrup on the third try, bent awkwardly towards Belle like a moth-eaten housecoat draped over a piece of furniture, folded in so many places that it’s hard to determine any recognisable shape at all. Luckily Belle is a patient mare; she doesn’t mind his fidgeting.

“Should be- Fine,” he breathes, and clings to the saddle horn, teeth clenched. With a grunt of effort, he pulls himself up with only his right side to steady himself, clambering over the seat to haul his leg across Belle’s back, scrambling like an alligator, wading on his belly. He pants, face screwed up like balled paper, and finally manages to settle in the saddle, sitting upright with an exhausted wobble, pitching slightly at the waist. The permanent ache flares in his shoulder, deep barbs snagging between every rib, Arthur simply focusing on breathing as he finds his balance, waiting for the pain to die again.

“You good?

“Mm. Gettin’ easier.”

It doesn’t look like it, but it wasn’t so long ago that even standing unaided was a near impossible task. Getting back in the saddle is a huge achievement, and Charles makes sure Arthur remembers that.

“Good,” he says gently, and steps up into Taima’s stirrup to mount, taking up her reins.

“So,” Arthur breathes, opening his eyes once the stars behind his eyelids disappear. “We headin’ out?”

“Camp’s got more than enough food. Pretty sure we packed everything last night.”

“After you then.”

Charles steers Taima around, and she carefully picks her way through the woods lining the shore, sidestepping clumps of bracken and nettles, the odd ivy-covered oak stump. Belle falls into step beside her, and they walk together away from the water, staying in the shade.

“Oh,” Charles says then, and Arthur looks across at him. “You forgot something.”

“I did?”

He leans slightly in his saddle, as if pulling a weapon from Taima’s cinch holster, only when he straightens up, the object in his hand is nothing like a gun. Arthur blinks, mouth falling open.

“Figured you’d be wanting it back sometime,” Charles says softly, and presses his lips tight together around the threat of a smile, reaching across the small gap between them as they ride to pass Arthur his hat. Slightly battered, and very worn, but uniquely precious, as only a man’s hat can be.

“Well shit,” Arthur says, and his laughter is mostly a huff of breath, feather light, leaning to carefully take the hat from Charles’ hand. He stares at it for a moment, and then laughs again, placing it firmly on his head. “Oh, that feels so much better.”

“Good.”

“I thought- I‘unno, was sure I’d lost it for good. By the time I thought about it- After everythin’ happened… Well, I figured it was long gone. Ain’t even sure __where__ I lost it.”

Charles glances across at him. They ride abreast, mares ambling through the woods as one. “On a cliff overlooking that oil derrick in the Heartlands,” he says, blankly matter-of-fact. “Rescued it from a patch of prickly pear.”

“Shit,” Arthur breathes, and shakes his head, fingers worrying the brim of the hat on his head, caressing the edge. “I- That’s where...they got me, I reckon, I don’t remember- You found it?”

“I did,” Charles says, and looks steadfastly ahead, picking a path through the dense trees, though Taima is surefooted enough to do so herself without any input from her rider. “Followed your tracks. After everything since, I...almost forgot I had it.”

“Huh.”

The circumstances of Arthur’s return to Clemens Point still haven’t been discussed in their bleak entirety. Arthur knows it was Charles that brought him back, but as to why - or specifically that it wasn’t on Dutch’s order - as far as Charles can tell, Arthur remains in the dark. He hasn’t asked, and Charles hasn’t brought it up unwarranted. Whatever he believes about the situation, or if he’s even given it much thought at all, Charles doesn’t know.

Perhaps it’s easier for him to have fewer details. If he asks, Charles will tell him, but he still isn’t altogether sure how or if he should broach the topic himself.

“Figured since this is your first real ride out, a good cowboy needs his hat.”

Arthur laughs, and relief surges briefly in Charles’ answering smile, watching him adjust the hat on his head in his peripheral vision, finding the perfect angle, the familiar tilt and fit. When he looks up, across at Charles, the addition of one ratty gambler’s hat somehow makes Charles’ breath catch in his throat, his blood thump loudly in his ears, every desire he has alight at just the sight of Arthur. He is beautiful. The shadow covering his eyes, the curve of the hat’s brim against the lines of his jaw, the black leather and thick brown of his beard, blue shirt and darker vest, rugged and rustic and sincere as the very earth they walk on. There are rips in his jeans, dirt beneath the bruised tips of his fingernails, and he sits slightly lopsided, one side sagging like a poorly-stuffed pillow, and Charles adores him, so completely that he can almost forget how very close he was to losing him, a scant several weeks ago.

How one man can be so unfailingly handsome, Charles does not know. How one man can affect him so badly, can upturn his entire existence within a matter of months, can make him feel such a hopeless and fawning fool - Charles doesn’t know that either.

“Thank you,” Arthur says brightly, stirring Charles from his thoughts. He shrugs a shoulder in reply, and Arthur simply smiles, sitting a little deeper in Belle’s saddle, back a little straighter, feeling a little more like himself.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so! i hope you enjoy this lil tiny chapter. but i want to apologise for how long this has taken me, and hopefully explain a little as to why. 
> 
> if you follow me on twitter, you might have seen why i've been absent for the past 6 weeks or so, but i wanted to let everyone know just to reassure that i am still trying to write. i haven't lost interest or given up. life has been pretty hard lately, and as this series has become such a big part of that life, and as you all have been so supportive and kind to me throughout, i feel like you deserve an explanation.
> 
> so. uh. i lost my dog. my henry. my best friend in the world. he passed away at the start of september. it was sudden and unexpected. he was only seven. it's been...difficult since then. he was with me for the hardest years of my life, and it was him that kept me going through it all. every word i've written in this series - he was beside me, resting his chin on my laptop, and kicking me in the thigh in his sleep. i miss him more than anything.
> 
> due to a whole load of weird circumstances since then, i've just adopted another dog who is still a puppy, a crossbreed between my henry's breed, and the breed of our puppy farm rescue dog, coincidentally enough. she's a happy distraction, and i see henry in her every day, but while it's helpful to keep busy (and puppies are a full time job of course!!) it hasn't left me much time for writing.
> 
> i am so sorry for this absence, for how long i've been taking and probably will continue to take, for all your lovely comments that i haven't yet answered, and that i haven't been writing as much as before. please know i read every comment, i am so grateful to every one of you that reads my nonsense, and i am still working on the series whatever chance i get. which is usually when puppy is asleep tbh!
> 
> anywho, i wanted to get something posted for you guys, so here's the first little chapter of the next fic. i'm about two thirds done with it, i think, but i hope this satisfies for the moment! charles and arthur are finally getting their trip out of camp, and a night to themselves in a snazzy hotel, even if a cougar stands in their way :')


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Across the fire, Arthur watches Winton from beneath the brim of his hat, eyes in shadow. He peruses the crackling fire, and looks up to Winton, flame glowing in the hollows of his cheeks. His voice slips deeper, threatening. The hairs on the back of Charles’ neck stand up. “You got some money for me, boy?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hi all! another quick update for you. i'm still working on everything, and i wanted to get something posted before christmas. hope you enjoy ♥

__

_We are two resplendent suns—we it is who balance ourselves, orbic and stellar—we are as two comets;_

__

_We prowl fang’d and four-footed in the woods—we spring on prey;_

__

_We are two clouds, forenoons and afternoons, driving overhead;_

The morning sprawls across Lemoyne like the great reaching paws of a lazy housecat, back arched up and tail unfurled as it rises from sleep, a bright grasping day swelling into every corner, every copse and marsh, the flood flats and dry creeks. As the sun rises, a swathe of gold pours in from the east, bursting the banks of the great Kamassa river to flow into Scarlett Meadows, rolling grassland awash with morning colour.

They head inland from the bay bordering the Braithwaite estate, across wide chenier ridges that border the lake shore, hammocks of oak and longleaf pine like arboreal islands amidst the tumbling meadows surrounding. Two side by side, riding together as they so often had before. Before the lofty height of summer had baked into the ground, and Arthur’s blood had stained the earth between them as red as the Scarlett Meadows clay.

It’s humid already, warm air heavy and wobbling with the warble of wild turkeys in the underbrush, cottontail rabbits scurrying for cover when the horses trot through the forests, out into the hilly uplands of Radley’s Pasture, dry as library shelves and just as dusty. Despite the glare of the ever-rising sun, the bright cool of open fields is welcome after the damp heat amongst the trees, Arthur adjusting his hat as they join the road north, air swirling with flies and magnolia scent.

The ride to Strawberry is a lengthy one. Charles had been hesitant, unwilling to risk Arthur’s physical health with such a taxing journey so soon into his recovery, but the promise of a few days to themselves had won him over, and the promise of money owed had won over Dutch in turn. Somewhere in Rhodes, Bill is supposedly looking for leads to finally be rid of one or both of the plantation families - attempting some kind of deal with the Grays, according to John’s secondhand account - but Arthur cares very little when faced with the prospect of time alone with Charles. He’s almost managed to forget the specific rotten ugliness of Catherine Braithwaite’s face, let alone spares thought for her numerous children or their miserable feud with Tavish Gray. It all seems so meaningless now, even though Dutch’s enthusiasm hasn’t dimmed in the slightest. If it were up to him - which Arthur reckons Dutch would much prefer - he would be in Rhodes with Bill, pain or no pain, trauma or no trauma. Hell or high water.

Arthur sighs to himself, and lodges his right thumb beneath one of his suspenders, rolling his shoulder awkwardly beneath its tight weight. His shirt is buttoned almost to his throat, despite the heat. Though he can feel the bandaging easily, like half his torso is wrapped in cotton, it helps to not be able to see it every unfortunate time he catches his reflection. Out of sight, out of mind, he supposes.

As they ride together, he tries to do the same for the gang. For Dutch. They can spare him for a few days, surely. He’ll deal with whatever fracas, fire, or fiasco is to come when he gets back.

It’s been far too long since he just let the road take him. With Charles and Taima by his side, no less. Getting back in the saddle, even if it isn’t on Magpie’s back, was a trial in itself, and he still hisses and grunts in pain every so often, when hooves slip or his dressing pulls, waking with far more aches than he usually would after a day’s ride. Belle, though, is a steady and genuine mare, older than the others, and she has been a generous partner while Arthur tries to right himself, tries to find his feet beneath him and not fall.

“So who’s this feller we’re visiting?” Charles asks, and the discomfort is audible in his voice despite how blank he keeps his expression.

Arthur sighs, levelling an apologetic glance at him from his side, eyebrows snagged downwards underneath his hat. “I ain’t like it no more’n you do. Strauss’s been on at me for weeks, I- You know I hate doin’ it.”

“I know. I’m...irritated that Dutch still thinks it necessary. There are less ugly ways to make money.”

“I hear that,” Arthur says, with another short sigh. “I feel like...plain robbin’ a feller’s one thing. It ain’t honest, but it’s honest, y’know? Usurin’ is...somethin’ else.”

Charles nods, seemingly lost in his own thoughts. As they travel northwards, past the grove of trees that hides Clemens Point from the main road, Arthur’s eyes drift to his left, thinking again of the camp beyond, the collected people, each an oddity or outcast in their own right, crowded together like curios in a glass cabinet. A magician, a reverend, a sailor, a usurer. Murderers, vagabonds, runaways, thieves. It sounds like the opening to a joke. Of which Arthur is probably the punchline, somehow the only fool gullible and mean-looking enough to still participate in Strauss’ dirty work - what Dutch calls a necessary evil. Dutch had only agreed to their proposed trip when Arthur brought up the debt that was owed by a man in Strawberry, the latest in a long line of Herr Strauss’ victims. Like flies lined up before a lizard on a warm rock.

This Winton Holmes, whoever he is, is the last name in the ledger for the time being, and being so far out from his last known location, two states over in fact, Arthur hadn’t got round to paying him a visit. Promising he and Charles were simply venturing into West Elizabeth to do so - and definitely not to stay in a hotel for a few days and sleep until noon each morning, while enjoying each other’s company more than they ever could at camp - was the only way they were allowed to leave at all.

Arthur is far from particularly pleased about it, however, even if the trip is only partly for debt collection, and mainly for him and Charles to find some time alone.

“Why does Dutch send you?” Charles asks, genuine. “Seems like Micah’s idea of fun. Or Bill’s maybe.” A wan chuckle and Arthur looks at him, expression tangled as if amongst thorns.

“I don’t know. Guess I always been the one Dutch sends to look mean and rough folks up,” Arthur says, shrugging his right shoulder. “Always been that way.”

“You don’t like it.”

For a moment - just the horses’ hoofbeats between them, rhythmic and slow - Arthur is quiet. Then he shakes his head, scratching his bearded jaw. “Don’t gotta like it. S’just what I do. S’who I am. Act dumb, look mean, shut up. But- I’unno, debt collecting’s just…” Again he falls silent, visibly grasping for the right words. They fumble inside his head like suds in a dirty pan, cloudy and formless, impossible to grasp without them fizzling into nothing but grime.

“Makes me...feel like I ain’t myself,” he continues as they amble together on the road, frowning beneath the brim of his hat. “Whoever that is.”

He’s no stranger to the more grisly side of their ‘work’. It’s been twenty-odd years, and Arthur has done plenty of things he’d rather not remember or process, except perhaps when neck-deep in a bottle of something so incandescently strong he’s liable to have lost a lobe’s worth of brain cells by morning. It isn’t new, but it hasn’t become easier with experience.

Perhaps when he was young, still a teenager, with young bones and quick fingers, strong fists, a shorter temper, unburdened by doubt and aching knees and the burgeoning weight of mortality; perhaps it was easier then. It’s difficult to remember how he felt back when the game was new, back when they were antiheroes and anarchists, noble rebels with a cause. Violence, when it came, still had its own thrill, in the beginning. An intrinsic sort of buzz, not just from adrenaline. Dutch was his idol; he had raised him from the chaotic dirt, brought him blind and dumb into purpose and potential, bestowed his grace upon him, given him direction, and fed him well, as he does all of them. Let him taste the dangerous drug that is belief. 

In Dutch’s gospel. In freedom. And so hypnotic a dream freedom is; _true _freedom, unchained by law or custom or nation, to children who grew up with nothing but the desire to run.

His word became Arthur’s scripture, the foundation upon which he built his adult life, a temple, testament to Dutch’s teaching, and to do his work - to kill as needed killing, to rob as needed robbing, to help, to take, to indulge, to control - that was all Arthur needed in turn. That was fulfillment.

Today it seems less simple. Dreams are the fantasies of children and sleep, far from the grim slog that is reality. Right and wrong, and his own place along that scale, his belief in the only rules he has ever lived by - now, it all seems far more difficult to understand. Whether Dutch has changed or Arthur has, he doesn’t know. Yet freedom seems as far from here as ever, further even, beyond the encroaching jaws of cities and governments, taxes and laws, and thirty six years of wishing that he might fly have led him no closer to sprouting wings. They still sleep in the dirt. And Arthur doesn’t mind that. Not really. But the novelty of Dutch’s sermons, psalms of promise and wealth and freedom, if they would only have more faith, do more work, read more Evelyn goddamn Miller - the words have somewhat lost their gilt.

“Sometimes it feels right,” Arthur says, admits, rubbing his thumb beneath the leather suspender strap again. Every movement he makes is wooden, like a marionette jerked on a string, uncomfortable with his own body and its voice, despite the fact it’s only Charles beside him. The road ahead is empty, red dirt. Their only onlookers are passing sparrows, the occasional insect interested in the shining buckles of the horses’ tack. “Whole country’s founded on greed, and robbing, killing. Dutch says it don’t matter how we do it, we just tryin’ not to lose at a rigged game.”

Charles looks across at him, listening, expressionless in that stoic way of his, eyes soft. There’s no judgement or disapproval on his face, there so rarely ever is, and Arthur takes comfort in the fact that Charles understands. Knows him well enough now that he can pick through Arthur’s messy thoughts, can make sense of them, even when they contradict each other, when they overlap and underwhelm.

“Then sometimes it don’t feel right at all. Feels like violence for violence’s sake. These folks is just tryin’ in their own way to get by. Innocent folks, you know? Ain’t their fault the world’s like it is, full of other folk out to make it worse. Ain’t their fault men like me exist.”

Charles looks at him again, this time loaded with a new colour, a heavy expression. Reproach, albeit mild. He never lets Arthur get away with self-deprecation if he can help it, even if he doesn’t speak to chastise.

Noticing, Arthur sighs, and rubs absently at Belle’s mane beneath his hand, the left kept on the saddle horn, weak and fairly useless except for balance. A cowboy faux-pas if there ever was one - to need to hold on at all - but he was never much of a cowboy anyway. Maybe he’d have made a better rancher than he did an outlaw. A more honest profession, perhaps.

The image of one Thomas Downes comes to mind then, a debt he’d collected in Valentine, or just outside. An ‘honest’ profession, indeed. His nostrils flare. “Sometimes, I get so mad,” he says, and Charles glances over at his tight tone, at the edge that appears in his voice, distracted from the road again. “So- So _goddamn_ mad at all of ‘em. Like that feller in Valentine- Miserable wretched sonofabitch he was, out collectin’ alms for- For the _poor_!”

Arthur huffs, snorting like a backed stallion, limp left hand thrown up. Belle’s ears flick back. “Like his own wife and kid wasn't starvin’ at home. A-And he was dyin’ himself of some godforsaken disease or other, the fool, hackin’ up his lungs all over. Bastard knew he was gon’ die and leave his family homeless and so- So poor they won’t have a pot to piss in nor a window to throw it outta-”

Attention turned fully from the path ahead, Charles just listens. His eyebrows raise. “What was he doing?” Arthur demands from the air, swirling with dust and midges as he brandishes his hand. “Why was he tryin’ so hard? He- He had a whole ranch! Playin’ at livin’ like real honest country folk, with his crops and his barn and for what? To die in the dirt like the rest of us! What was the fuckin’ point?”

Huffing again, Arthur grits his teeth. His cheek burns, feeling the weight of Charles’ eyes getting heavier, an anchor snagged on the riverbed, dragging through mud. It only irritates him further, shame and anger twisting sickly in his gut like he’s swallowed spoilt milk. 

“Why’d he go and borrow from Strauss?” he snaps, avoiding Charles’ eyes. Taima’s ears flick. Charles pats her neck. “Why’d he...do his woman and his boy like that? Wailin’ and whinin’ about the damn ‘less fortunate’, lookin’ at me like I’m the Devil himself - and maybe I am, but it sure ain’t my fault his boy’s gonna bury his old man.”

Eyes narrowing, Charles still stays silent. Part of him longs to interject, to ask Arthur what in all _Hell_ he’s talking about. Why he’s so angry about some stranger in Valentine. Yet he doesn’t. Instead he watches Arthur’s face, notes the way he pulls at his lip with his teeth, facial muscles stretched behind the carpet of his beard as if he’s chewing the insides of his cheeks, and the lowered angle at which he holds his head, chin tipped down towards his chest. The glare of the sun is harsh, but Arthur simply averts his eyes rather than squint, frown deep.

He isn’t angry, Charles decides. Not at the heart of whatever the problem is. The core of this apple. He’s ashamed.

“Ain’t my fault he signed the goddamn paper and ain’t my fault he ain’t paid up ‘cause he was too busy bein’ _honest_,” Arthur continues, snapping like a threatened dog, shoulders hunched up. Hackles raised. “Definitely ain’t my fault he fell for thinkin’ this world’s anythin’ but a whole pile of shit. It ain’t; it fucks you over, and then you die. He shoulda made his peace with that a long time ago, and quit playin’ hero. As if it makes any goddamn difference. Maybe then I wouldn’t’ve had to visit him and maybe then his boy’d still have a father.”

He snorts his breath through his nose, like a bull eyeing a matador, lowering its horns to charge, and the anger lingers for several moments after he finishes speaking, heavy in his darkened brow, shaded by the brim of his hat. Even his posture seems to bristle, fur standing on end as if charged by static. Charles looks back to the red dirt road.

They wind past the dilapidated fencing of whatever cottage used to stand near Clemens Cove, a blackened skeleton mostly reclaimed by brambles and sweetgum, only the chimney remaining upright, like the spine of a long dead animal protruding from the grass. Flies buzz with the humid air; the horses kick up dust. Meadows surround on all sides, dotted with yellow tickweed and the waving stems of various tall grasses, ivy and moss climbing the stumps of the fence posts, scattered in loose lines parallel to the road, like a row of teeth in an old man’s mouth, crooked and broken. The white rump of a prancing stag briefly catches Arthur’s attention, skipping over the fallen fencing and into the next patch of forest beyond, disappearing between the trees. He breathes, and shuts his eyes.

“Shit,” he says quietly, rubbing his face with his good hand. His next breath comes in a weary sigh, deflating like a punctured balloon, and he glances at Charles beside him, apologetic.

Charles looks across, expression blank. “Do you really believe all that?” he asks, tone somewhere between gentle and studying.

Frowning, Arthur rubs his chin again, nails scratching at his beard. The pink lines they leave aren’t visible past the thick coating of hair, his eyes shaded by the brim of his hat. “No,” he says weakly, and looks down at Belle’s mane, hand dropping to where the hair stops a few inches short of the saddle horn. He rubs there, and Belle drops her head, stretching contentedly into the weight of the bit in her mouth. “Maybe. Sometimes.”

Finally, he glances at Charles. “I don’t know.”

Somehow, when it’s just the two of them, talking or reading, riding out together, drinking their morning coffee, sharing a smoke in the evening, sleeping beside each other at night, life seems a lot less complicated. Things seem simple. Honest. When it’s just him and Charles, the world is easier to understand.

It’s everything else that doesn’t seem to make as much sense as it used to.

Since meeting Charles, since getting to know him, it feels as if the structure his life has been built around has changed, like someone moved the foundation stones while he was away, and now the whole house is set on an entirely different plot. Things that seemed obvious or certain before, things Dutch has taught him to rely on and keep close since he was a child - they now confuse him, pose more questions and no easy answers. His way of thinking has altered, and Arthur can’t explain it away by the knock he took to his head or the sepsis that nearly killed him. He can’t explain any of it.

“Lately, shit don’t seem as simple as before,” Arthur says, and sighs, his chin dropping to his chest. He can barely make sense of it within the confines of his own mind, let alone try to explain it to Charles. “Dutch’d say somethin’, and it’d make sense, and I wouldn’t have to think about whether it was right or wrong or not, ‘cause Dutch’d said it. That was good enough. Now, I- I dunno.”

“You don’t have to know,” Charles says, soft, only his voice and the birdsong in the air, the reedy chirps of insects in the grass. “Some things don’t have easy explanations.”

“Right...”

His working shoulder rises and drops, Arthur slouching in the saddle. He scratches his chin again, and past the shadow of his hat, Charles is sure he can see an indignant flush prickle in Arthur’s cheeks, noticeable against the brown of his beard. “Seems like- Seems like since all this shit with the O’Driscolls, since I… You...”

He doesn’t complete the sentence, lips pressed together. “S’like the rules got changed or- My eyes are seein’ somethin’ different and I don’t know what I’m doin’ no more. What Dutch is doin’. How we gonna get outta this...running, if there even is some gettin’ out. Was easier when I didn’t question it, you know? When it was just ‘Dutch’ll figure it out’.”

“Sure, I understand.”

“He’d say I’m ‘doubting’,” Arthur says, huffing to the bright sun. “Seems like I’m doubtin’ everythin’ of late. Shooting folks, sharking folks, fleecing backwards-ass rich plantation folks. Ain’t sure of nothin’ ‘cept…”

His voice trails off, and he shrugs again, nose scrunching up. The flush is more visible now, despite how he ducks his head, hiding beneath his hat. “I- Well… _You_ know.”

Silent for a moment, Charles presses his lips together, tight around the smile that tries to break through. That’s the Arthur he knows, somewhere beneath the snarl. “I’m sure of you too.”

Arthur chuckles, self-conscious, and glances across at him, just for a second. “I-I’m sorry, you- You didn’t ask for no rant, shit, uh- The feller we gotta visit- Feller’s name is Holmes. Refinery worker turned hunter, apparently.”

“Hm. In Strawberry?”

“North of. Up Hawk’s Eye Creek, campin’ out in the hills, last Strauss heard.”

The road crosses the railroad tracks further on, and then crosses back again, a bridge carrying the tracks across the dry trench of Dewberry Creek’s western tail. Coyotes yip and bark in the creekbed, scattering towards the abandoned watermill on the northern bank as the horses amble past on the road below. River rats too run from the hoofbeats, fleeing to silt burrows in the rushes and into the timber frame of the old building, the disintegrating cladding making a cosy shelter.

Absent, guilty for his outburst, Arthur simply plays with Belle’s reins, lame left thumb rubbing at the buckle. He’s reminded of the German family Charles had reunited so many weeks ago, despite Arthur’s determination to leave the mother and her two children to whatever miserable fate awaited them. The way Charles had explained to him, afterwards, how he sees right and wrong not as some universal absolutes, chiselled in stone at the dawn of creation, but rather as a constant series of choices made within oneself; it had seemed simple then. Doing right could be as small an action as a kind word or gesture, or as complicated as tracking and rescuing a missing German father to return him to his family. The decision is every man’s to make, and will differ from one to another.

It seems simple when Charles explains.

“We best get on then,” Charles says, and smiles the smallest smile as Arthur looks across at him, backlit by the rising sun, now fully fledged and flaring toward hot and bright mid-morning. “Long ride.”

“And I already ranted your ear off ‘fore we even left Lemoyne. What d’you see in me again?”

Charles clicks his tongue. “I’m weak for pretty faces,” he snaps, sarcastic enough that Arthur laughs, startled into a better mood the same way that a scare is said to cure hiccups.

“So that’s it, huh.”

“Mhm, and _I_ already told you I will never get tired of listening,” Charles says, reproachful expression seeming to melt as soon as it appeared, the same ghostly smile playing around his lips as though waiting for permission to show itself properly. “Talk all you want. We got a day’s ride to fill.”

Huffing, Arthur can’t help his own smile, the flush returning to his cheeks in earnest, and not solely down to the heat. “Lucky I’m so fulla sparklin’ conversation, huh.”

“Sun and stars to me, Mister Morgan.”

Arthur shakes his head, smiling wider, and gees Belle up into an easy lope, finding the movement far more comfortable than the two-beat trot, chuckling at the look on Charles’ face as Taima skips to keep up - a proud sort of affection, like they’ve shared some inside joke.

The journey doesn’t seem anywhere near as long as it actually is, drifting by easily with the morning, in silence and conversation both. Past the dry bed of Dewberry Creek, Lemoyne’s border is noticed only in the changing foliage, the disappearance of the magnolia and hickory trees, the red shade of earth beneath them turning imperceptibly back to brown, coastal loam.

They take the low road through New Hanover, carved beneath bleached cliffs, tumbling sandstone falling sharply from the prairie above to join the floodplain below where Flat Iron Lake laps steadily at the sand. Blackjack oaks postmark the path, neat punctuation to a jagged coastal trail, the sun following them westwards as they go, winding between the rockface to their right and the lake shore to the left, a dazzling expanse of sunlit water, broken by pockets of trees.

Charles is grateful for Arthur’s sparse chatter, talking about whatever’s on his mind from one moment to the next, pointing out wildlife and shapes he can see in the clouds, telling him about the gunslinger-turned-pig-farmer he’d found up this way, some old trophy asshole that author Arthur had met was looking to interview. He’d made Arthur shovel pig shit with the promise of answers, and Charles laughs when Arthur regales him with how he’d rigged the slop heap with dynamite when answers hadn’t been forthcoming.

The last time Charles had ridden this way, it was cradling a corpse to his chest. Hand clamped over a racing heartbeat, praying to any god that would listen that it wouldn’t stop. Taima’s hooves had sunk in the damp sand, four-beat time and far too slow, and he remembers Magpie’s stuttering gait beside her, slipping and swaying like a newborn foal, heaving her exhaustion to the cold night. He can hear her desperate wheezing in his memory, and Arthur’s too. Beyond the chatter of sparrows, the easy rhythm of the horses, the greetings called by other travellers on the road as they pass, Charles can still hear the rasping gurgle of Arthur’s voice, can still feel the weight of him in his arms, shivering like a sapling in a hurricane. How Arthur’s sweat had run slick down the back of his neck, but Charles pressed his lips there anyway, kissing his wet hair, infection stench soaking through the rotten scraps of his clothing. It still clings in his nostrils, a cloying damp in his throat.

The idle conversation helps to distract him from the memories, at least. Arthur’s voice is strong and familiar beside him, talking to Belle, telling Charles stories of past adventures, and the sun seems only to highlight how much _better _he looks, how he seems to glow with the slight tan and flush in his cheeks, how his beard both blurs the angles of his jaw and roughens the sharp outline, some intoxicating mix of soft and rugged, gentle, scruffy, handsome.

When he catches Charles looking, he smiles. As if he was never sick at all. As if the past few months’ horrors, the sleepless nights, the crippling pain, the shame, the humiliation, the fear- All of it is nothing when Charles’ eyes meet his.

They stop for a late lunch somewhere south of Flatneck Station, past noon, able to hear the rumble of passing trains above them. Grey water divides New Hanover and West Elizabeth, the wide outlet of the Dakota river splitting the states in two as it meets Flat Iron Lake, flowing into a fast-moving network of silt islands and sediment channels, rushes and reeds growing thick on the sand banks. Deer stop often to drink, startled by passing travellers and the occasional wagon heading upriver to Caliban’s Seat and on to Valentine, and Arthur sketches a couple of does as they linger by the water’s edge, only catching fleeting impressions of movement and shape, adding detail once they’ve long moved on.

His new journal has been started in earnest, several pages already full of handwriting and drawings - a fishing trip with Javier, young Jack playing with Cain, a new species of pelican he’d spotted wading off the Point. Everytime he touches it, it’s as though it’s his most treasured possession, and Charles finds his own joy in seeing Arthur happy, content to sit and eat with him while he doodles or jots something down, again distracting himself from the lurking memory of the last time he had overlooked the mouth of the Dakota.

It was cold that night despite the season, moonlight pooling in the river like oil, slick and shining, catching on the sheen of Magpie’s sweating flanks, and the coating of blood that dripped down her legs. He can hear his own heartbeat, insistent, desperate, the triple time of Taima’s canter, flecks of sand kicked up from her hooves- Then the thud of Arthur’s body as he fell, and Charles’ stomach fell with him, swallowed into the shallow water where every sense, every reason, every fibre in his being, sank and succumbed to drown. Some madness was sparked in him that night, a grief for something that had barely begun, for a man he had known for mere months.

The image recurs often, played in a loop, in nightmares and waking both. A nauseating reel, spiralling to a point of panic - until he resurfaces, and sees Arthur looking up from his journal beside him, tongue between his teeth, nose wrinkled in concentration as he sketches the soaring lines of another doe, a hunk of bread held weakly in his left hand while he draws. The sunlight seems to kiss him, tiny pecks across his nose with his freckles. Charles breathes, and the air is fresh once more.

Gulls cry overhead. They continue on.

Cormorants and terns lodge in the ironwork of Bard’s Crossing bridge like tiny distant books dotted across a high shelf, swooping through the struts and trusses in a constant flurry of white-winged motion. They wheel above them as they pass beneath the bridge, calling and crying, horses splashing through the shallows to formally enter West Elizabeth on the opposite bank.

North of the Upper Montana, West Elizabeth is a lush place. Mount Shann dominates the horizon to the far north-west, a soaring grey peak amongst the firs and pines that blanket Big Valley, snow-capped and shrouded in distant cloud. The foothills are granite cliffs and green forest, an undulating canvas of steep trails and craggy valleys, Owanjila lake nestled in a wetland basin on the windward face of the mountains, framed on all sides by ponderosa and lodgepole pine, western juniper and red fir. Elk bray throughout the forests, mule deer graze in the higher meadows, and bighorn cling to the cliffside paths, eagles and osprey hunting in the skies above.

In contrast to wet, humid Lemoyne, West Elizabeth is just as verdant but a far more manageable temperature, even at the height of summer. A breeze blows from the Upper Montana, and the air loses its stifling weight, easy to breathe. Beyond the coast, they follow the road west, climbing the granite cliffs of Diablo Ridge, bare rock towering above the Dakota like enormous chimney stacks, pine trees clinging to talus slopes and outcrops, a thousand needle teeth in the grey maw of an ancient leviathan. The track loops and bends, turns in on itself at hairpin angles, and they take a slower pace as they climb, even the sure-footed deer struggling with the slipping scree.

From the forests to the open foothills, the afternoon is busy with wildlife, red squirrels scurrying from tree to tree, tiny chickadees singing from the laden pine branches, flitting to catch insects visiting the flowering dogwood shrubs. Grassland spills across the granite like an overflowing trough, vying for purchase where wildflowers and tall grass can grow, before being swallowed by the pines once more, a mismatched jigsaw of greens, greys, and golds. At a high point in the trail they pause to let the horses rest, trees clearing to reveal a tableau view of West Elizabeth, from the angular fretwork of Bard’s Crossing bridge to the dark remains of Fort Riggs on a distant bluff to the west, wooden skeleton curled between the hills as an animal laid down to die.

It’s a bright, fair day, and the view south across the canyon where the Upper Montana river splits the state is stunning for all it lacks in detail, a dreamlike patchwork of fading green, sepia chaparral meeting the woodland in a clash of dry colour, slopes descending into broadleaf and oak, trees thinning until they’re swallowed by tallgrass and sedge on the other side of the river. The new golden shade extends as far as it’s possible to see, land rolled and smoothed into an endless, beckoning prairie, from Flat Iron Lake in the east, past the angular shapes and distant smog of Blackwater’s urban sprawl, disappearing to the west in one burning ochre blur.

As they take a moment’s rest, Belle unused to such a long ride and Arthur suffering with pain as his permanent companion, Arthur wonders what lies beyond that far horizon. Where the sky crashes into the savannah, held aloft by unseen orange mesas, by the saguaro and the Joshua trees he knows wait past West Elizabeth’s southern border, and the wilderness stretches eternal in between.

By late afternoon, they wind through the pine forests surrounding Monto’s Rest, or rather, what’s left of them. Logging operations are apparently complete care of the Appleseed Timber Company, and Arthur shares Charles’ disdain as they look out on the stark acre of felled trees, bare stumps circling outward from the company headquarters like blight through a potato crop. Only skeletons remain, amputated limbs and distended bodies, even the earth beneath stripped bare and dull, roots torn up and bark degloved.

So many men would call it ‘progress’, and perhaps it is. Cutting down ancient trees to build new cities, or carving through a cliffside to pave a railroad, churning the earth to dig out gold or iron or coal to fuel the trains that ferry the logs to the yards and the factories that build more - Arthur feels vaguely guilty that he’s never paid much attention before. The onward march of civilisation has long bothered him, but only in the sense that his freedom feels threatened, his own ability to move freely through the world. As they wind through dead trunks and cleared land, silent of birdsong and the chattering of squirrels, he thinks idly about the bison back in the Heartlands, their crowns bloodied and split, flesh cold and fly-bitten, and Charles sparkling incandescent with his anger, all caused by that same strain of insular thinking. A selfishness and greed that men like him seem cursed to inflict upon the natural world.

Strauss’ brand of legal robbery is surely just more of the same with a slightly fancier hat; more felled pines, millennia lived between them, more stolen, more sold. More selfishness.

He sighs, and manages a wan smile as Charles looks over from beside him, managing to calm his bolting thoughts with just one glance, as always. When did he start thinking so hard about things? As unpleasant as the job is, he’s sure Charles’ company will outweigh whatever awaits them in Strawberry. For all the greed and arrogance of mankind as a whole, for all the unease in him about so many different things of late, Charles seems to be the one exception to the rule, the gentle fingers resting on the vibrating string, stilling the sound.

Miss Grimshaw’s agitation with how long he’s been at camp, the increasing amount of time Molly spends half a mile down the beach and Karen drowns with a bottle, and Dutch’s growing impatience, longing to start poking a pointed stick at the Gray/Braithwaite feud again to see what else falls out; all of it means little when he focuses on Charles, on their couple of days together, away from prying eyes and clamouring hands.

Bellies full, horses falling into step once more, they ride on.

Hawk’s Eye Creek is audible before it’s visible, loud and frothing white as water flows down to the Upper Montana, carving a winding path through the foothills of Mount Shann. The birdsong starts up again as the forests reclaim the mountainside, squirrels bouncing in the undergrowth and the calls of elk like distant music on the chill breeze. They loop to the north with the main road and ride along the creek’s steep banks until Strawberry emerges from the cliffs ahead, a clustered huddle of log buildings set out around the water.

It’s a simple mountain town, still bearing the hallmarks of a long-extinct mining operation. Great sluices and dredging equipment have been built around the humble lodgings and storefronts, framing the overlooking cliffs, structure remaining long after the profit has worn to a burnished bronze, rather than gold, as it has throughout the west. Smoke plumes from myriad stone chimneys, and people bustle about the main thoroughfare, dogs yapping at stray chickens and porch cats, children dangling miniature fishing lines over the bridge into the river.

Arthur hadn’t had much time to get to know the place before. His only previous visit had been to break Micah out of jail, then watch him shoot half the town to splinters and entrails before escaping with his life. Just about. It hadn’t left a lot of room for sightseeing. Lucky no one had seen his face, else he’s sure the visit with Charles would end much the same way as it had with Micah.

“Let’s head up here,” Arthur says, and veers off the road before the decorative covered arch that marks the entrance to the little town, like a lychgate to a churchyard, taking a narrow track beneath a swollen rock formation to bypass the main road. Charles gestures for him to lead the way, Taima trotting steadily behind Belle.

The trail winds up onto the cliff overlooking Strawberry, steep gable roofs as tall as the sloping rock, the sound of the creek rushing through the waterwheel only fading once a new clump of forest overwhelms them, pine canopy blotting out the sunlight to the needle-strewn track below. A sporadic knocking noise fills the forest as they trot on, a distant woodpecker clinging to one of the hundredfold trunks, jackrabbits scattering through the fern underbrush from one dappled patch of shade to another.

“Ain’t been through here since that business with Micah,” Arthur says idly, and shifts Belle to the side of the track, Taima falling into step to pause behind her as a wagon trundles past them. The driver lifts his reins to raise an amicable hand in greeting, and Arthur tips his hat in reply, waiting for Charles to return to his side before he continues. “Wish Dutch’d left ‘im here to hang, if I’m bein’ honest.”

“Agreed,” Charles murmurs, expression darker for the stippled shadows of the pine trees.

The sun catches his hair whenever it breaks through the canopy, and Arthur can’t help but keep his gaze for far longer than would be polite in lesser company, momentarily forgetting the job they have to do before they’ll even get to enjoy their time away. He’s distracted so easily by the handsome lines of Charles’ profile, his posture in the saddle, his expressive hands, his nose, his eyes- How the sunlight seems only to emphasise how beautiful he is, as if framing himin gold, melting over the high points of his cheekbones like sweet, decadent honey drizzled from a spoon.

The hotel in Strawberry better offer breakfast. 

“Yesterday, I overheard him trying to…” Charles pauses, an odd amusement on his face, mouth tilted to one side like an askew shelf short one nail. “He...asked Miss Roberts out.”

“He _what_?” Arthur asks, bursting into snorting laughter, startling a flock of sparrows from the nearest tree. “Really? Abigail? You’re shitting me, what’d he say?”

Smirking, Charles just snickers, the track emerging out of the forest and into the light once more, climbing away from Strawberry. “M’not lying. Claimed he’d show her ‘a good time’. I thought Abigail was going to skin him.”

Arthur snorts again, laughter dissolving into cackles, head thrown back and grin wide. “_Shit_\- Oh that’s good. Hope she beat his ass. Nasty lecherin’ creep.”

Charles can’t help smiling. Seeing Arthur laugh always gets him. “He said he’d- He’d ‘always fancied _fathering’_.”

“Jesus,” Arthur wheezes, laughter coming in sharp bursts like a dog barking at an unexplained noise. “What an _asshole_. Thought my father was bad. Can you imagine?”

“Micah Bell junior.”

“Fuckin’ horrifying.”

Arthur scrunches his nose, looking up as they again emerge to an open curve in the road, watching the flight of some birds far above them. “Abigail ain’t no shrinkin’ violet,” he says, the amusement fading from his voice. “She can handle herself sure enough, but…I see him so much as make eyes at her, or Karen or Miss Tilly or young Mary-Beth - any of the poor women roped into livin’ with us - I’ll make damn sure it’s the last time he _has_ eyes.”

“Think Sadie’d do the same,” Charles says.

“She sure would. Oughta get her out cleanin’ up for Strauss. Mrs Adler’d get it done.”

Charles chuckles, amicable. It’s clear the task ahead is weighing on Arthur’s conscience. Imagining Sadie taking a filet knife to Micah is only a small comfort. The sooner they get the job done, the sooner they can relax, and put all thoughts of Strauss, Micah, the rest of the gang, all of it, far from their minds. Just for a while. Arthur deserves that.

Following the track around a new bluff of sloping grassland, they amble together to the east, Charles shielding his eyes from the sun with his hand. Wild lilac grows in clumps along the path, shin oak and dogwood spilling out from the patchy forests. Amongst littered rock and moss-covered stumps, the distinctive flowers of silver evergreen lupine bloom, tall spears of purple-blue petals waving between the long grass and sedge. Each spike is frequented by various butterflies, wings catching the sunlight as they flit amongst the honeybees and wildflowers, pausing for a moment’s rest on the pointed stems like tiny flags atop a castle turret.

“There’s smoke ahead,” Charles says after a further few lengths’ riding, and Arthur follows his gaze to a grey monolith overlooking the track to the north, nestled above a shallow ridge like the soaring back of a great whale, diving into the green foothills beyond. Sure enough, a thin trail of smoke rises from the rock. “Camp, maybe?”

“Could be our feller,” Arthur replies, urging Belle into the lead again as the track narrows, meandering around the granite plateau until it disappears completely, swallowed up by boulders and tufts of grass.

Climbing further, they approach the ridge. The rock is worn smooth into towering walls above a short outcrop, chiselled from the earth as if cut by a knife, as tall as the lodgepole pines that cling where they can amidst the shifting scree. They turn once more, and Belle has to lope the steep incline up to the ridge, coming to a sudden stop as her hooves skip on the worn stone ground. Taima comes to a stop behind Belle, snorting her dislike of the rugged terrain, and Charles lets her stretch down as they survey the site from the far edge. It’s like they’ve accidentally stepped into someone’s house through a door they didn’t know was there, waiting hesitantly in the hallway before they cross the threshold.

A modest hunter’s camp is set up before them, spread out over the shallow plateau in the shade of the rockface, brush cleared to bear a fire, a bedroll unfurled against the far cliff wall. For a small space, it’s unusually cluttered, simple furniture fashioned from crates and boxes, chopped logs piled to the side, belongings strewn about as if it is in fact someone’s home.

A saddled bay horse is hitched to a pine trunk across from them, hay spread on the ground before some kind of makeshift workbench. It’s clear the owner of the camp has been hunting, the bench covered in the trappings of a butcher’s block, stray feathers and an impressive set of antlers amongst carving tools and various knives, a simple tanning rack constructed behind to stretch a deer hide, skin pulled taut and scraped clean. Ammunition is neatly sorted into boxes on a small trestle table beside the bench, gun oil, a tin of boot polish, a stiff bristle brush, and a neckerchief amongst the items littered around the various surfaces.

Smoke drifts from the fire in the centre of the camp, smouldering with only embers amongst the kindling. A pot hanger frames the fire, and several other pans are piled on the ground around it, kettles of water, a jug with utensils inside, tin mugs, some dirty plates. Empty cans are stacked there too, and a washbasin with a rag and meagre sliver of soap balanced in a saucer. A shaving kit is beside the basin, set out on the wicker lid of an old hamper, complete with tiny mirror and scissors.

Whoever’s camp this is has been here for a while, Arthur reckons, or they wouldn’t bother with such things. He’s had to leave too many beds far too quickly in his lifetime to know soap and boot polish aren’t high priority when a fast exit will decide whether you live or don’t.

There’s a simple lean-to on the other side of the fire, blankets spread out on the ground, a large knapsack open within. What looks to be a map takes up much of the sleeping area, unfolded and well-creased, marked with passages of writing and drawn symbols, large crosses, circles. Perhaps tracking something? Looking for treasure? Or else marking the most accessible escape routes.

Beside the lean-to is a bedroll. A man is sitting there, hunched over his own knees, since the shelter itself is occupied by the map, his back leant against the rock. His hat is tilted down over his face, head tucked to his chest, and he makes no motion to suggest he’s heard them, seemingly taking a moment to rest.

“Reckon it’s him,” Arthur says, surveying the camp, and Charles hums his agreement, watching Arthur take his feet out of his stirrups, and try several times to swing his leg back enough to clear Belle’s cantle. Left arm held awkwardly to his chest, he takes a second to breathe, and tries again, wincing as his torso twists, bent at the hips over Belle’s neck. Finally, his boots hit the floor, and he sighs a deep breath against Belle’s withers, right hand still clinging to the saddle horn for balance. Lest his knees collapse.

Charles is by his side in a moment. The man by the fireside forgotten, Charles slips easily from Taima’s saddle and crosses to him, hand finding the small of his back and pressing there as he turns to meet him, fingers splayed where his suspenders fasten to his jeans, a triangle of taut leather in the centre of his body. “I’ve got you. You good?”

“Fine.”

“Tell me if you need a moment, okay?”

“Mm.”

“_‘Mm’_ you won’t because you don’t want to bother me or draw attention to the fact you might need help, or _‘mm’ _you will because your health is important and you know I’m not above hogtying you and taking you home if you’re intent on hurting yourself?”

He holds Arthur’s gaze. Arthur offers a strained sort of smirk in reply, shirking his eyes. “Now that kinda talk’s best saved for the bedroom, Mister Smith.”

Charles exhales, sharp through his nose. He frowns. “Arthur.”

“_Charles_.”

A furtive glance towards the sleeping man across from them, and Charles leans in as if to kiss him, trapping Arthur completely against Belle’s flank in the breadth of his shoulders, his imposing height, the immovable prow of his hips and thighs. He has Arthur at his mercy, Belle completely disinterested behind them as Arthur is backed up against her side, the stirrup knocking into his back pockets.

Ducking beneath the brim of Arthur’s hat, Charles leans and lets their lips touch, simultaneously pinching a tuft of Arthur’s beard between his finger and thumb and holding it tight. The hitch in Arthur’s breath vibrates through his chest, and Charles just watches his eyelashes flutter as he tries to steady himself against Charles’ full body, finding himself dwarfed and stuck and truthfully not minding much at all.

“Your well-being is more important than this poor bastard’s money,” Charles growls, low and rumbling, breath hot on Arthur’s lips, currently pouting, intent on ignoring him and striving to snatch a proper kiss with Charles so close. Unrelenting, Charles holds firm, eyebrows knotted. “I care far more for you than I do for Strauss’ debt or Dutch’s pockets. Tell me if it gets worse. Please?”

“Ow,” Arthur grumbles, and wraps his right arm around Charles’ middle, giving up his attempt at stealing kisses and stepping into his chest with a sulking scowl. The pressure on his beard releases, and he sighs.

His forehead rests on Charles’ shoulder. He breathes, nose buried in the soft cotton of Charles’ shirt, unbuttoned vest brushing his cheek. The day’s ride aches in his knees, in his back and sides, the ground feeling too solid to be comfortable, his hips too frail to bear his weight, and for a long moment he just leans on Charles, sharing the burden that is his own body.

It’s not that he wants Charles to worry, and he knows he can’t expect to be anywhere close to normal so soon after the ordeal with the O’Driscolls, but reminding himself of that fact is never pleasant. Sometimes it’s easier just to pretend. Sometimes the pain drains him to the point that it seems like the only thing he can do is curl up in a ball and cry, and he’s done far too much of that recently. Far too much of Charles having to mop up after him. Literally.

Surely it’s better to keep pushing forward, to keep himself going, so there isn’t enough time to stop and truly think about the mutilation of his shoulder, the tremors in his feet, the numbness and dysfunction of his left hand. It took weeks for him to stand on his own, and with each small piece of progress comes a new damning realisation of his limits, a new fear of failure, of further disability. What if his muscles waste further, or the stitched wounds reopen? What if Dutch decides he’s outlived his usefulness and is no longer wanted? What if Charles’ patience finally runs out? What if, the moment he stops to rest, he’s never able to find his feet again?

Charles’ pinching fingers are replaced by a soothing thumb, and his free hand rubs Arthur’s back beneath his suspenders where they button inside the back of his jeans. He glances again at the sleeping man further along the rocky plateau, and plucks Arthur’s hat from his head to press a kiss to his crown, fair hair slightly damp with sweat.

Eventually, Arthur sighs. He lifts his head. The hat settles again in its rightful place. “Fine,” he murmurs, and Charles hums as he finally lets their lips meet in a gentle kiss, brief but grateful, heavy with unsaid feeling. “I know. I will, honest. Promised, didn’t I? You wasn’t gonna let me leave camp if I didn’t promise.”

A quiet ‘thank you’ is whispered against his mouth, in the midst of another soothing kiss, and the two of them straighten up, Charles’ hand lingering on Arthur’s back as he lets go of him, helping him find his balance. “Just make sure my pain medicine includes a whole bottle of bourbon,” Arthur mumbles, and catches Charles’ exasperated snort as he picks his way along the outcrop, heading towards the hunter’s sprawling camp.

His posture shifts as he walks; he draws himself up, tight and stalking. Charles follows behind, noting the swagger in his gait, like a hulking bear, muzzle dropped low.

A predator stops by the fireside. He kicks the sleeping man’s boots.

There’s a squeak. Crying out, the man scrambles backwards on his bedroll, almost kicking out the support stake for his lean-to. Wide eyes turn up to Arthur’s looming shadow, covering his cowering figure like everything the poor man fears in one. “Winton Holmes?” Arthur asks, voice low, a rumble of thunder. Charles can almost hear the curl in his lip from where he lingers by the campfire, watching. “Playin’ possum, boy?”

“I-I didn’t-” the man stammers, gaze flicking across to Charles’ silent figure, and then back up to Arthur, eyes like saucers. “I didn’t...expect to see anyone out here.”

With a huff, Arthur tips his chin up, like a dog baring his teeth, pointed snout scenting the air. Scenting fear. “Funny…” he growls, and turns from the aforementioned Mr Holmes, crouching opposite him to survey his simple fire, the pot bubbling on the hanger, as if judging the poor man’s work. “How far a man’s debts’ll follow him.”

The energy of the afternoon, the very air around them, seems to be clasped in Arthur’s hands, gathered up and clenched tight, like collecting a heavy-headed horse up beneath you, reining in a powder keg of potential. From the sombre, almost shy man of just a moment ago, this Arthur is all but unrecognisable, and would be if Charles hadn’t met him before, seen Arthur adopt this brash and impatient persona at will.

Charles thinks it’s unconscious. There are many roles that Arthur is required to play in his work for Dutch. Over the years, he suspects his personal playbook has become close to instinct, no more deliberate than shutting his eyes when he sneezes, or squinting in the glare of a bright light. Further, it seems to Charles to be a necessary costume for Arthur to cloak himself in, to be able to do the things required of him at all, and cope with them without going mad. He dons a new pelt, drapes himself in a new skin like a coat, the teeth still intact in the skinned muzzle like a coronet atop his head, and the lines between what is right and what isn’t seem so much less important. His bite is deeper, his bark is louder, and all that matters is his job, the end beyond the means, padded out with the constant affirmation from every angle that he’s a killer, a thug, an idiot, and always has been, violent and angry and unthinking. The teeth in the jaws he wears were already caked in blood when he first inherited them; what does it matter if he adds a little more? And conversely, how noticeable it would be if he _didn’t_.

He remembers the day they’d fled from Horseshoe Overlook. How Arthur had growled and snapped and lunged at him, the multiple faces of himself clashing, running together in a sickly insoluble mess, one Arthur unable to reconcile the presence of the other. An angular spinning top, whirling so quickly on its point that the sides and corners are no longer visible, just a blur of motion until it collapses, end over end, and comes to a stop. Only then can you see the shape of it at all.

He’d said it himself, afterwards, when the barest self was left, the truest man; he doesn’t know who he is. Is he violent, angry, selfish? Good, honest, loyal? Both, neither, all of the above, or perhaps a much more complex and unsatisfying answer - that Arthur is a man whose identity has been controlled and influenced by another for so long and since such a young age that it’s near impossible to know which parts of him were always meant to become, and which were impressed upon him, which formed naturally and which were moulded by another’s hands.

Charles doesn’t know what it is that makes someone’s ‘true’ self. Watching Arthur with his posturing, his armoured costume, eyeing Winton Holmes like a wolf eyes the flank of a deer, he cannot be sure where the seams are, between the gentle, kind soul who sings to himself without realising, who reads poetry and tells puns, and makes breakfast for Tilly and Mary-Beth when they’re feeling under the weather; and the man before him now, the hunter, the enforcer, with his instinctive brandished teeth, a tempest for his temper, and an addict’s penchant for seeing men bleed.

The only thing he’s sure of is that he loves him. All of him. Everything he is, was, and might become. Whoever; as long as he is Arthur Morgan, Charles knows he wants nothing but him. That’s reassuring to him, even if it doesn’t make much sense.

Across the fire, Arthur watches Winton from beneath the brim of his hat, eyes in shadow. He peruses the crackling fire, and looks up to Winton, flame glowing in the hollows of his cheeks. His voice slips deeper, threatening. The hairs on the back of Charles’ neck stand up. “You got some money for me, boy?”

Face still slack in shock, Winton stares, his legs collapsed in front of him, heels scuffing the brush and dirt. Blank, he watches Arthur take a ladleful of the soup bubbling in the pot, and blow on it before tasting it for himself, demonstrating a casual and infuriating arrogance that he has no answer for whatsoever. “I seen your name in our ledger,” Arthur drawls, and understanding dawns on Winton like a slap.

“You’re...with the German?”

Blue eyes seem to slide over to Charles where he’s standing by the fire, slow and lazy, Arthur’s expression laden with something that absolutely should be kept to the bedroom. Potential, simmering like the pot in front of him. Like an animal dragging its kill to its mate. Offering a carcass like a gift. Charles raises an eyebrow at him. Smirking, Arthur drops his gaze and looks again at Winton, impatient.

“L-Look, I got it for you,” Winton starts, and clambers to his feet as if to ready his escape, nervous hands pulling at the hem of his worn jacket. “It’s just-”

Again, Arthur simply looks at him by way of answer, stirring chunks of nondescript vegetables with the ladle. His eyes fix to Winton’s neck, as if he can see the rushing pulse thumping through his jugular vein, smell the sweat on him. “Well, I- I don’t got it _yet_.” 

He’s a slight man, jittery and short, younger than the two of them, a wiry beard and battered hat only adding to his shabby appearance. Even standing, gesticulating widely with his agitated hands, he still carries a threadbare, unravelled sort of countenance, like a moth-eaten old coat found crumpled in the back of an understairs cupboard, somehow given limbs and the power of movement. His gaze flits up to Charles, who is perhaps an entire foot taller than him and easily twice as wide, darting away again just as quickly when no comfort is found in his blank glare. “I-It’s up in them hills,” he says, and gestures weakly up at the surrounding cliffs.

“Pannin’ for it?” Arthur asks, somehow still managing to look menacing even crouched on the ground, inspecting a pot of soup.

“Hunting it,” Winton says, waving hand falling back to his middle, hovering there with the other, fingers interlocking.

With a laden sigh, Arthur stoops, and shifts to an upturned box next to him, sitting himself beside the fire, his small noise of exertion turned into a hiss of frustration. There’s a coffee pot by his foot. He touches the side. Still hot.

“I t-tracked this cougar,” Winton starts, imploring Arthur to understand, and takes half a step towards him, voice rising in the face of his apparent disinterest. “It’s rare. Lily white coat. The pelt’ll _more_’n cover what I owe, I promise.”

Arthur pours himself a cup of coffee. Looking up, he gestures to Charles, silently asking if he’d like some. Charles flexes his fingers, arms folded around his chest, declining with a barely noticeable shake of his head. “If I’m skinning anythin’,” Arthur says, looking down at the cup he fills. Steam plumes around his nose. His voice slips to an even deeper low, grating. A boot on gravel. “I’m skinnin’ you, boy.” He sips his coffee. Charles licks his own lips.

“P-Please,” Winton says, starting forward again despite Arthur’s narrowed eyes, his hands hanging in front of him in precursory surrender. “I’m outta work. It’s...the only way you’ll get paid, a-and all the hard work’s already done. I tracked her to her den, it ain’t so far.”

For a long moment, Arthur remains silent. Long enough that Charles is sure he’s doing it deliberately, just to torture the poor man further as he drinks a cup of his coffee, sat rudely beside his fire, barely bothering to conceal his annoyance. It radiates from him like heat, clenched in his tight posture, his hissing breath. His bicep tightens visibly beneath the sleeve of his shirt, as if imagining the grip needed to strangle the excuses from Winton’s throat, and Charles follows the curve of muscle down over his chest to the swell of his thighs, idling on how his jeans look so much tighter when he’s sitting down.

“Fine,” he snaps, and swallows the last of the coffee with a brisk intake of cool air, emptying the dregs into the fire. With a grunt, he gets to his feet, face tight in what Charles knows is pain, but could very easily be mistaken for anger. “You’ll be done good and proper if you’re playin’ me, boy. Now move.”

Winton moves. Scampering forward like a startled rabbit, he adjusts his hat as he crosses the campsite, giving Arthur an amusingly wide berth. “O-Okay, we’ll uh, uh...need our horses. It’s um, quite a trip.”

“Yeah, yeah, just get.”

Sharing a glance with Charles, heavy with a private amusement, Arthur kicks a plume of dirt and dry pine needles over the smouldering fire before following Winton, clicking his tongue to get Belle’s attention as they head to the edge of the plateau. Charles lingers as Arthur mounts up, waiting for him to find his balance and settle in the saddle before he readies Taima. As they traverse the slope back down to the track, Arthur grants him another glance, corner of his mouth tweaked, and Charles nods in reply, accepting his silent thanks.

Winton mounts his slight bay Saddler, and Arthur gestures impatiently for him to take the lead from the end of the track below the outcrop, keeping Belle halted while Winton catches up. “Drive, boy. Let’s get where we’re goin’ while we still got daylight.”

“It’s a-actually a perfect time, she’ll be getting ready to feed or go out hunting-”

“_Drive_.”

“O-Okay, follow me.”

Urging his horse forward, Winton leads them around the short outcrop, ignoring the track in favour of crossing through the long grass, lupines growing as tall as his knees. It’s uneven ground, and he keeps a slow pace along the slope, picking a path from the very lowest foothills of the mountain peak far above them.

They form a loose line, Taima in the rear on Belle’s tail, passing through clumps of solitary pines and incense cedar, deep emerald foliage a lush contrast to the bright summer grass, the rich purple of the evergreen lupines, and the blue butterflies that cling to their flowers.

“It’s j-just-”

“I said _drive_,” Arthur snaps, harsh voice startling a cloud of chickadees from the nearest ponderosa pine.

“I’m driving!”

“Make me come out here. Make me chase all over this goddamn mountain.”

Glancing slightly back at him in his saddle, Winton has his eyebrows raised. Indignance. Charles can just picture the darkening scowl on Arthur’s face. “Hey, you, uh, _knew_ it was a risk…”

“I didn’t know nothin’, your name’s all I knew.”

“Well, the German-speaking feller then. Mr Strauss? He knew my work situation was...precarious. That this whole thing was a…a_ risky_ venture.”

Barely audible, Charles huffs from behind Arthur. They’ve managed to find themselves an educated debtor. Wonderful.

“Risky?” Arthur snarls, voice like a dull razor scraping skin. “Am I at risk now? You _threatenin’ _me, Winton Holmes?”

“I ain’t! No. Certainly not!”

A harsh exhale is all the answer Arthur gives, though Winton still recoils into his coat collar as if smacked on the back of his head. Heels squeezing into his horse’s sides, he brings her up into a slow lope, the path stretching mostly straight ahead of them, and doesn’t speak again for some time.

The trio follows the sloping road vaguely westwards. A makeshift graveyard is nestled between the vegetation some way from Winton’s campsite, wooden crosses huddled in loose rows. Who is buried there is impossible to tell as they ride past, skirting trees and splintered stumps, great boulders buried in the grasses, tumbled from the mountainside above.

Beneath their path, the main road from Strawberry returns to view, curling up around the granite cliffs, but Winton leads them in the opposite direction, climbing higher into the jagged landscape the town shelters beneath, and the grass is soon swallowed by the loose gravel of the foothills, a rocky track winding further up into the mountains. His Saddler slips on the new surface, hooves unsteady as the ground shifts and scatters beneath her, and Arthur sits tall in his saddle to try to keep his balance as they settle at a slower pace, shoulders tight. The ache persists, sharp throughout his torso. He grits his teeth. 

“Sir… If I may,” Winton starts, and again glances at Arthur as the track opens up before them, revealing a wide view of the entirety of Mount Shann’s south-facing slope. It’s an expanse of grey granite, angular and uneven like a page ripped from a book, long slabs like grayscale paintings and dotted with dark pines, pockets of grass clinging wherever they can grow amidst the rockface, a blurred collage of colour and texture. Clouds peek out from behind the furthest cliffs, thin like cigarette smoke, sky a deep afternoon blue in all directions. “I’m… I’m merely stating…” he says, Arthur glaring so hard at the back of his head that it’s a wonder a smoking hole isn’t bored clean through his skull. “A man without a job, with limited prospects… At those rates? Repayment was by no means guaranteed. I said I’d do my best and I did.”

Winton leads them away from the track, skirting a large formation of smooth rock. Grass carpets their path once more, rucked up in rolling tufts like a great velvet rug, and as the way ahead opens up, the same creek that runs through Strawberry appears beyond the far trees, bracketed on one side by yet more rock, rushing water sparkling in the late sun.

“You’re continuin’ to annoy me,” Arthur says gravely, with a buzzing threat in his voice that sounds like a live hornet’s nest, and Winton falls blessedly silent as they approach the water, head ducked beneath his hat.

“Right, here,” he says eventually, gesturing lamely with one hand. “Up the stream.”

It isn’t a wide creek, but it’s fast-flowing and deep, and Belle hesitates before Arthur encourages her onwards, his good hand rubbing gently at her withers. Her ears flick back to him, and she reluctantly obliges, following Winton’s Saddler into the cold water, only snorting and swishing her tail at the blurred reflections of tiny fish, sculpin and suckers, darting downstream away from the invading hooves.

Water sloshing around their ankles, horses only just able to keep their feet touching the ground lest they start swimming, the three of them wade in single file through the creek, icy even with the constant sun. Arthur wrinkles his nose, feeling the cold through his boots, and keeps urging Belle forwards despite her discomfort, the instinct to stay with the other mares overriding her want to get out of the water.

“You good?” Charles’ quiet voice comes from just behind him, and Arthur automatically tries to twist to look back at him, only the movement sends sharp pains through his middle, muscles protesting, and he hunches slightly to ride out the ache, eyes screwed shut.

“Yeah,” Arthur says, and nods as if to convince himself he is.

He offers a wan smile, Charles bringing Taima alongside Belle, before Arthur grits his teeth, and his voice again becomes a growl, snapping his frustration at the back of Winton’s head in front of them, wild dog nipping at a deer’s hind hooves. “Though this feller’s _posturin’_ about ‘guarantees’ ain’t helping my patience!”

Rushes overgrow the creek’s banks on both sides, tangled in the cracks between rocks where water has washed through. Solitary Jeffrey pines tower above them, some close enough to the water’s edge that they seem almost to be growing in the creek, soil long eroded to leave bare roots clinging to the rocks like the iron fretwork of Bard’s Crossing Bridge, braced against the rushing water. Arthur idly watches fish flicker between the open root structures as they wade past, clumps of knotted reeds and grasses lodged between the rocks providing ideal homes to muskrats and water voles, summer’s visiting wading birds, strings of moss and water weeds drifting downstream on the white current.

It’s beautiful country; the pines and the fir trees, the lonely stone outcrops, twisting tracks and quiet eyries, only visited by eagles and bighorn. The sort of place he’d love to explore, if only circumstance would grant him the time.

“How ‘bout this then,” he says, voice raised over the rushing water, and the horses’ valiant marching through it. “I _guarantee_ repayment. ‘Cause I’m gonna get that money outta you, Winton Holmes. If I gotta squeeze you like a lemon, it’s comin’ out.”

Winton glances back at him, one hand holding his hat. “Yeah, of course!” he says, placating, like he’s promising sweets to a toddler in mid-tantrum. “We’re onto it now, okay? We’re onto it.”

As the creek turns sharply to the north, Winton leads his horse from the water, wet hooves traipsing through a stunted clump of flannelbush up the northern bank to another rocky track, gravel and sand cascading down the short slope as they climb. “The cash is in that cougar, mister. Sure as pumpkins ain’t cauliflowers, the cash is in the cougar.”

“It better be,” Arthur growls, patting Belle’s neck in praise as she shakes out her wet mane, stretching down into her bit. “Or I’ll turn you into a goddamn cauliflower.”

Smirking, Charles simply follows behind, shaking his head as he rubs Taima’s withers, water streaming from her tail in swaying lines as they climb the bank.

The track is soon swallowed by the creek again, meandering between squat cliffs, carved smooth by millennia of flowing water. Trees seem fewer as they climb, growing in loose groups or alone completely, and Arthur idly wonders how high they are, seemingly approaching the upper limit of Mount Shann’s forests, where the pine woodland becomes montane meadow, carpeted with mat-growing alpines and heather, exposed stone bluffs and talus slopes. White shapes are visible across the far cliffs, dotted amongst the grey expanse, and as they continue on, climbing ever higher, he’s finally able to see what they are - bighorn sheep grazing on what little grass remains amongst the rock.

“Up here,” Winton says eventually, some miles further up the mountain, hugging Hawk’s Eye Creek. “We ain’t too far now.” He urges his horse on, still wading through the current, and she’s clearly tiring as Belle and Taima are, breath snorted in white plumes, flanks wet with sweat as well as water. “What I know about cats,” he says, turning to address the two of them behind, a vaguely manic sort of pride in his expression, like a man relaying his great knowledge of knots as a noose is tightened around his neck. “This one’s rare as hens’ teeth. I mean, you ever seen an _alabaster_ wild cat?”

Arthur huffs through his nose, jaws clenched. “The thing ‘bout cougars, boy, is they see you. Not the other way around.”

“That may be, but...you’d see this one. I been huntin’ with my pa, shot all kinds of cats. Never one like this.”

Charles isn’t sure that’s something to brag about, but he stays silent. Again, Winton leads them from the creek, turning westwards before a small falls, rock rising sharply in several steep steppes, water cascading from above, spray kicked up and foaming white as the horses trudge through. They follow a new path across sparse grassland, skirting silver pines towards a narrow ridge between the rock formations, towering above an unseen valley to the south. Lake Owanjila floods the basin somewhere within the green expanse, and the emerald sprawl of Tall Trees bristles behind, nothing but a dark blur in the distance. Wisps of cloud spiral below them like strands of wool caught on a fence, and as they climb yet higher, the chill in the air becomes impossible to ignore, steam rising from the horses’ wet flanks.

“In another life, I’da sought my fortune outdoors. Not in the hot, stinking belly of a tar pit,” Winton says, addressing the fir trees, the black-capped chickadees.

“I ain’t interested in your regrets or your life story, Mister Holmes,” Arthur says, terse and gruff, such a churlish tone of voice that it doesn’t sound like him at all to Charles’ ears. “Just your damn money. Now, _drive_.”

Winton drives.

The ridge they ride along snakes upwards, a hidden stairway of scree and scrubby grass, punctuated by a few lonely pines and hemlock trees, stunted by the weather and wind on the south slope of the mountain. An eagle takes flight from a lofty perch as the horses clatter through, soaring through the lolling tops of lodgepoles growing far below them, canopy just gracing the height they now ride at. Wherever Winton is leading them, it’s deep in the belly of Mount Shann, some hidden place within the labyrinth of cliffs and grassland valleys, carved into the granite all the way up to the peak.

Their path opens once again as they turn northwards, a cluster of dark trees clinging to the mountainside, sheltering a patch of grassland from the wind. Snow starts to blow across the track from the cliff tops, ground hard and dry with embedded limestone, and the horses snort as they ride through, approaching another grey rock formation, sitting angular and formless in the crevice between slopes, scaled and armoured like a giant armadillo.

It’s colder somehow, out of the open. Powder snow drifts across the stone ahead, accumulated on the ledges of the great granite wall before them, piling wherever the sun can’t reach even in the depths of July. The air bites, and Arthur subconsciously hunches his shoulders further, dressed only for West Elizabeth’s summer sunshine, in his cotton shirt and jeans, and not the chill of the mountain.

“This is it,” Winton declares, rounding another meander in the track, and sitting heavy in his saddle to slow his horse, walking the dozen more yards to the craggy rockface. “Her den. We should leave the horses.”

It doesn’t look like much. The break in the rock is barely noticeable until they’re on top of it, which Arthur supposes is what a cougar might look for in a den, if cougars were picky about such things. Not that any intruder in their right mind would come adventuring up this way, so far from anything, human or otherwise.

He huffs, breath condensing in a plume of white. Beside him, Charles brings Taima to stop, and dismounts close to Belle, watching Arthur with his silent eloquence, his ability to communicate without saying a word. Arthur meets his gaze, shares his apprehension.

“She’s feisty,” Winton calls across from them, dismounting his own horse and beckoning the two of them over to the cave entrance - at first glance, just another odd overhang in the rock. “Bring what weapons you got.”

Arthur hesitates, and again has to try a few times to be able to dismount, Charles’ gentle hand appearing on his back for just a second, helping him find his balance once his feet touch the ground. He breathes. Pats Belle’s withers, straightens up. “Bow?” he murmurs, finding Charles’ eyes again.

“Ideally. Rifle too?”

“Just in case. Arm still ain’t workin’ right for the bow.”

Looking over at Winton, wandering in front of the cave entrance, Charles frowns. “He’s got a revolver.”

Arthur snorts. Back against Belle’s stirrup, he looks up at Charles, longing to embrace him again, forget the debtor, the debts. “Then he’s a fuckin’ idiot as well as a skinny smartassed little shit,” he says, teeth clenched. “With tongue enough for ten rows of teeth. Though seein’ as we’re trailing in after him, we’re fuckin’ idiots’n all.”

“Mm,” Charles hums, tone grim.

He reaches past Arthur, close enough to kiss him, but simply unholsters Arthur’s rifle from Belle’s cinch, checking the sight and bolt before handing it to him and turning to fetch his own weapons. Their bows are slung over their shoulders, and Arthur wedges several arrows in his boot, safe between the leather and his tucked jeans, checking his knife is easily accessible in his belt too. Just in case.

“I’ll take point.”

Looking up at him, Arthur considers arguing. Charles can see it in the way his jaw tenses, can see the necessary cogs whirring in his head to form an instinctive retort. Instead, he sighs, and nods, watching Charles pull a small kerosene lantern from his camping supplies over Taima’s cantle, the steel handle clattering against the frame. “Sure,” Arthur says, and takes the lantern from him. Charles’ hands work far better than his do, at the moment. If he can keep two on a weapon without worrying about light, maybe they’ll get out of this cave alive.

They walk together, leaving the horses pawing at the chalky ground, shaking the last of the water from their manes and tails.

“Isn’t quite mating season yet, so it’s likely a young female, not long left her mother,” Charles says as they approach the rock wall, Winton poking his head into the crevice within. “Not confident enough to stay in the open too long. Probably keeps kills here, rotates around several dens in her territory to feed.”

“Great,” Arthur drawls, sarcastic. “Well, if you get jumped, let it eat him first.” He nods towards Winton, still out of earshot.

“Will do,” Charles replies, deadpan. “Remind me never to piss you off.”

“As if you could.”

“Might try and turn me into ‘a goddamn cauliflower’.”

He’s smirking, and Arthur smacks his arm, scowling despite how his mouth tries to laugh without permission. Condensation plumes around his face. “Shut up.”

They catch up with Winton, holding his own lit lantern aloft before a dark opening within the rock, about as tall as two men and gaping wide, grimacing like a toothy mouth. Arthur lights his own lantern with a match from his jeans pocket, adjusting the wick as the flame grows to a bright white blaze, sealed safely inside the glass housing. He squints into the cave. All that looks back is blackness and silent, solid rock. Snow scatters across the ground before them. He shivers.

“C’mon then,” Arthur snaps, gesturing at Winton. “Show us this cat. ‘Fore it eats us.”

“You’ll see her soon,” Winton replies, and exhales, taking the first step into the cave, lantern light swaying gently with his careful footfalls. “Quiet now,” he whispers back, dramatically loud. “Won’t be able to miss her. Shining in the dark.”

“Yeah or chewing on your head.”

Either Winton doesn’t hear, or simply chooses to ignore him. Revolver at the ready, he walks inside, and is swallowed by the dark maw, gravel crunching beneath his boots.

Beside Arthur, Charles huffs, and shares a look with him, an arrow already held loosely against his bow’s string, kept in perfect place by practised fingers. With only his expression, he manages to share Arthur’s frustration, and apprehension, sighing softly before he starts to follow behind Winton, leaving Arthur to bring up the rear.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so: i started writing this series nearly exactly a year ago. which is just...wild. it's been a difficult year, but i can't explain how grateful i am to have been able to share this nonsense with you all, and how important rdr2 is to me, still. it gave me the gift of inspiration, and against all my doubts and fears, this story and characters are still so dear to me, and still giving me the want to write. i can't begin to put words to how much it means that i'm still writing at all. and that you're all still reading too.
> 
> thank you for all the lovely comments on the last chapter. it's been hard. but i'm so glad there's still folks reading this, despite how long it takes me to get it written. thank you for all the comments in general, thank you for a year of kindness and support, and thank you for everyone that's read this story so far. thank you rockstar, too, for giving me back something i thought i'd never be able to find again.
> 
> have a wonderful, peaceful, safe holiday season. look after yourselves and those you love. thank you for all the support, and i hope i'll still be around writing charthur next christmas 😊


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Charles?” he breathes, mouth barely moving.  
He can feel the heat of Charles’ body, close as he dares to get on his offside. His nostrils are flared. The kerosene glow stills.  
Fletching whispering, Charles draws his arm back in one movement, sharp. Strong. The bowstring bites into the skin of his fingers. Wavers. Waiting.

__

_We are seas mingling—we are two of those cheerful waves, rolling over each other, and interwetting each other;_

__

_We are what the howing wet of the Tennessee is—we are two peaks of the Blue Mountains, rising up in Virginia._

A motley trio, they proceed into the cave in loose single file, ducking to wade through the glow of kerosene, surrounding them like fog. The path is steep and uneven, descending through a narrow passageway of eroded limestone, rock carved away around them to create a sweeping, looming architecture deep within the innards of the mountain. Lantern light careens from the pitted walls as they walk, shadows pooling in ceiling lofts and recessed alcoves, great shelving systems where the rock has fractured and split into new layers, smoothed and shaped by millennia of ancient waterflow. Only footsteps sound as the passage walls shift and fold on either side, above and below them, underscored by a perpetual dripping noise from somewhere unseen, an eerie ostinato to their cautious steps.

Then, almost on cue, a shriek shatters the silence, piercing, echoing within the belly of Mount Shann.

Charles stops, completely unmoving, shoulders drawn across his back as he readies his arrow in one fluid pull. Lantern held up, Arthur flanks his offside, and the three of them listen, white light swaying down the tunnel. The dripping continues.

There are no eyes in the darkness. Not yet.

“See?” Winton breathes, looking briefly back at Arthur and Charles. His expression is wide and wondered, underlit by the hollow lantern glow, shadows recessed in his eye sockets. “There’s a cougar in here, and I bet she’s white as virgin cotton.”

Arthur scrunches his nose, lantern still held aloft to illuminate the path, the light from the cave mouth fast fading. Boulders litter the formless tunnel ahead, countless hiding places, brutal furniture to adorn a grey and disorientating passageway. Lichen clings in the crags, dark corners home only to the strangest of creatures - spiders, beetles, worms and scuttling things, and evidently - as the distant screaming proves - one cougar. Who likely isn’t expecting visitors.

Charles relaxes his grip, bowstring going slack. “Definitely female,” he mumbles, clipped, blank tone to his voice, somehow both muffled by the overhanging walls and echoing from them, the air in the cave seeming too thick to carry sound easily. Like trying to shout underwater. “Ready for mating.”

“Oh, great.”

Arthur snorts, lantern handle creaking as he again directs the light around the passage ahead, briefly glancing back the way they’ve come. His voice is sharp, but his left hand curls in the space next to Charles’ wrist, weak fingers brushing barely at his skin, and Charles responds, hand opening to Arthur’s, their knuckles knocking together by their sides. “She’ll be real pleased to see us ugly two-legged bastards come creepin’ up on her then.”

Voice dropping, Charles speaks just loud enough that only Arthur can hear him, Winton proceeding down the tunnel with his lantern held boldly aloft, striding deeper into the cave as if he’s taking an evening stroll around town rather than a death pit with a cougar inside. His revolver is clasped in his free hand, thumb ready on the hammer like some awful theatre character, a dashing adventurer with a pith helmet and binoculars, hacking through the Bornean jungle in search of native treasure. “We ain’t gonna creep up on her,” Charles says, grave, and meets Arthur’s gaze for a moment before they press on, close to each other.

As they delve deeper, the distance from the cave mouth becomes indistinguishable. A bright hole of white light is all that’s visible over their shoulders, yet it’s impossible to tell how far they’ve come, or what awaits further in, distance swallowed by the ceaseless, silent stone. The walls are both smooth and pitted, ceiling low and then soaring once again, a claustrophobic corridor of unknown width and length, lit only by the two lanterns, and it’s bleak enough that Arthur is fairly sure he’d go mad if left in such a place for any length of time, driven insane by the neverending rock.

As it is, he labours beside Charles, and behind when the tunnel narrows too much for two people, stooping slightly to his injured side with every hesitant step, chest unable to support its own weight. Sometimes it feels like the only thing keeping him upright is his vest, buttoned across his torso and fitted too well to allow his struggling muscles to completely collapse. His breathing joins the grim silence, rasping in rhythm with their steps, until the light of Winton’s lantern glints on something metallic, and the three stop, peering through the darkness ahead.

On closer inspection, the glint reveals itself to be a crumpled can, tin structure squashed and deformed, catching the kerosene light. Similar objects are haphazardly strewn against a new rock wall at the end of the path, where the passage widens into a misshapen antechamber, ceiling lifting and narrowing to a vaulted point some half a dozen feet above them. Water drips from overhead, a constant trickle, and jagged stalactites have formed in the crevice where the rock becomes a peak, drooping down towards them like particularly ugly chandeliers.

It’s a natural end to the long entry passage from the surface, and so all kinds of debris has collected in the chamber over time, stoppered against the rockface and unable to naturally move any further down the slope, deeper into the cave. The ground is littered with the aged remnants of some long-abandoned campsite, or hiding place perhaps, a mountainside shelter against a blizzard or a thunderstorm from many seasons past. Far enough into the cave system that a person or animal might feel vaguely safer than they would outside, but not yet deep enough that any lurking danger might awaken, and take offence to the intrusion.

The trio inspect the remains. An upturned whiskey crate serves as a seat, or perhaps a table, the wood coated in a spotted mildew from the damp, obscuring the lettering painted on its side. Arthur raises his light, swaying in his right hand, white glow falling on wooden planks against the opposite wall, discarded with empty bottles and the glass shards of others, crumpled paper, scattered brush, as if someone had once built a fire, trying to cook or keep warm. A rusted shovel lies amongst the debris, the broken head of a pickaxe, empty tins, an upturned box of .22 calibre rifle ammunition, its label faded beyond any legibility, and further still, in the recesses where the light doesn’t reach unless angled just so - there are bones.

Skeletons, stripped carcasses, small game and rodents, the keel bones of birds, ancient and aged to a ghostly yellow-white. They’re scattered across the stone, strewn like a child’s wooden blocks after their tower has been knocked down. Predator caches, it looks like, or else the remains of an opportunistic meal, ribs and jaw bones, stray teeth, littering the ground as in some crude graveyard, animals left to the rock where they died.

Scratch marks, gnaw marks, distinctly animal, are chiselled into the bone fragments, marrow-seeking, clumsy butchery, and gouged into the walls too, the dents and crags, distinct lines scraped across the rock. As they move into the centre of the odd chamber, trying to avoid droplets of water from above, Arthur notes there are stains beneath their boots, streaks of colour that aren’t deposits of some dark mineral or mica, but blood, almost as prevalent as the litter. Dragmarks stripe the ground, some black with age, some bright and sticky still, spattered and spotted around their feet like the ever dripping water.

“Nice spot,” Arthur grumbles, nudging a stray can with the toe of his boot. His voice echoes around the peaked ceiling, rattling against the rock like thrown dice.

“Homey,” Charles says, and stoops to inspect the newest of the blood smears, Arthur lending him a pool of light.

The makeshift camp marks an uneven fork in the rock structure. Two paths emerge from the shadows, dark space oozing from the solid rock like oil wells, pushing through to continue deeper into the mountain. Arthur clicks his tongue.

“The tunnel diverges,” Winton says, helpfully, looking from one gaping black chasm to the other. He turns to Charles and Arthur, mouth upturned as he thinks. “How about… I’ll take the left, you fellers go right, and we’ll see if we don’t converge down a-ways.”

“Fine.”

Nodding his head, Winton adjusts his hat, and then strides toward the left fork. “And look out for her!” he says, waving a jovial hand back to them, lantern light bobbing out of sight down the passage.

“Yeah, yeah.”

Arthur shifts his weight and turns to Charles, wincing as he rolls his shoulder, rifle barrel knocking against his back. “I’ll carry it,” Charles offers, nodding towards the rifle strap, softness slinking effortlessly back into his voice now that Winton is out of sight. And earshot.

“S’alright, it don’t hurt, s’just...uncomfortable? Like it ain’t sittin’ right.”

“Your muscles are tired.”

“Mm. Feels like it. Feel like a soup sandwich.”

“C’mon,” Charles murmurs, fingers briefly finding Arthur’s left hand, squeezing.

They walk side by side down the rightmost passageway, Arthur ducking behind when the path narrows too much for both of them to fit, lantern held so Charles has as much light as possible. “I could give you a massage, later,” Charles says as they descend, volume kept just above a whisper, and delights in the tiny surprised laugh Arthur gives him, giggling behind him, a bubbly sort of noise like a boiling pot of coffee.

“Ain’t no one given me a massage before.”

“Then I’d be honoured to be your first.”

That makes Arthur laugh again, a snickered chuckle, smirking up at him as he returns to Charles’ side. “I dunno how you do that,” he says, holding the light up to show their way. It prickles in the thick rasp of his beard, the kerosene flame turning his hair blonde, skin ruddy. “We could be...hogtied to train tracks, watchin’ the damn Union Pacific plough towards us, and you’d still be makin’ me blush easy as pie.”

Charles smiles, managing to illuminate the miserable tunnel far better than any lantern. “That next week’s trip? Hogtied to train tracks?”

“Honestly, I wouldn’t be surprised no more.”

He huffs again, but it lacks the humour of before, and they fall reluctantly silent, both keenly aware of the danger they’re in by just taking a moment to talk. There’s very little chance of them sneaking up on this cougar unnoticed, not with three of them clattering around the cave, let alone making jokes about their very probable mauling.

Sometimes Arthur wonders if perhaps he’s hit a certain age, or some certain level of apathy within his own life, that he can face being eaten by a wild animal with an unhealthy amount of levity. Flirting with death seems common for him of late. He has no energy to kick and scream in terror.

As they descend the new path, darkness takes over. The little light from the cave mouth is lost completely as soon as they pass the abandoned campsite, swallowed by humid, still air. It’s an oppressive, total absence of sense, only the lantern to give them any awareness of their surroundings at all, highlighting the sweeping lines of the walls, the vaults and fissures in the ceiling. Vague shapes loom ahead, swirling in the shadows, and Arthur has to concentrate on every footstep in order to keep walking, struggling to stay balanced on such uneven terrain.

It reminds him of the cellar. The O’Driscolls’ cellar.

All he remembers from his imprisonment are few, scattered moments of lucidity, strung up and dangling, suffocating under the weight of his own body. When the hanging had started - he barely recalls when or how or even if he’d imagined all of it - his eyes had been rendered mostly blind, only a single weak flame to provide any reference, when it was even visible at all, blood flooding the space behind his optic nerves, choking on the little breath he could squeeze into his lungs. This is unnerving in the same way he feels upon reminiscing, his memory still fragmented and blurred, but solid enough to provoke emotions, to remind him of the particular horrors he had felt at the time. Even a nightmare can wake you screaming, though no more real than any dream, and though his mind is foggy, Arthur can still recall the fear that dripped from him in torrents. Confusion, thirst, exhaustion. The stench of rot and vomit and damp, and the pain, an agonising pain - bone-deep and indescribable, so overwhelming that his every thought was screeching, begging for it to stop.

He clenches his jaw. Exhales through his mouth. Charles glances at him, steady and present, and they keep moving.

Tucked into an alcove on his left is another cluster of bones, bigger than the others had been, and still placed in the approximate position they would have been while their owner was living, albeit only partially intact. The skull is narrow and pointed, hollowed-out eyes. A wolf perhaps. Curved ribs flank some vertebrae, still affixed to each other in the column of the spine, but no more of the skeleton remains.

Charles pauses in front of him then, and Arthur holds the lantern higher, revealing a steep drop in the path ahead, floor sloping down sharply to a new depth. It’s impossible to see how the cave progresses further on, only that the walls no longer seem as narrow.

Again, no eyes shine back at them. No sound comes.

Bow held ready, Charles descends first, shards of rock and dust kicked up as his boots land heavily in the pool of lantern light below. Pausing again, he searches the darkness, listening, and only once he’s slightly more sure he won’t meet a cougar as soon as his back is shown, he turns to help Arthur, offering his hand in support.

Shifting the lantern to his left hand, fingers weakly curled around the handle, Arthur takes Charles’ arm, and gingerly makes his own way down the slope. His boots slip almost immediately, pebbles cascading to the bottom, and he skids to a hurried stop against Charles’ chest, forearms locked together. The lantern creaks, clattering into his side.

“Thanks,” he breathes, stepping back, readjusting his hat before he switches the lantern to his right hand, left fingers furling and unfurling into his palm.

Charles touches his back, and turns again to survey their surroundings.

It’s a cavern, far larger than the fork in the passage had been above, a vast belly within the mountain, carved out of the rock like a storm cellar cut beneath a foundation. Great stalagmites rise from the stone like misshapen columns, climbing in stacked blocks a good twenty feet above them, holding up the last clinging ceiling beams of a subsiding house, sinking inevitably into a swamp. The ground itself is uneven too, dipping, rising and disappearing in shallow valleys, swollen cliffs, sweeping towards a deeper depression ahead, almost invisible until the light of the lantern reveals the sudden disappearance of the floor.

Somehow the air seems even deader further underground. Nothing stirs as the two of them proceed into the chamber, wading through the humidity, the silent cold, barely daring to breathe, sure the slightest noise will give them away, will lose them their split second advantage in which to fire a shot. It feels like they’re stumbling through a minefield.

“Feel like a cat in a room fulla rockin’ chairs,” Arthur mumbles, directing the lantern to show the far left wall of the chamber, a rolling mass of rock, featureless and grey. Years of erosion have softened the angles of every change in direction, every architectural feature, smoothing each plane and striated crack into formless, undulant shapes, like some ugly sculpture made of papier-mâché. Like papier-mâché that someone has sat on. 

Charles hums his breath, listening intently, every sense alight, and they move deeper into the cavern, skirting the pit by the opposite rockface. More stalactites drip from the ceiling, almost touching their stockier opposites that erupt from the floor, clumped towers of rounded boulders, crystallised mineral deposits, casting viscous looming shadows, oozing across the stone. It’s easy to see monsters, imagine their outlines in the stretching dark.

In the distant corner of the cavern, a new passageway emerges, an opening pried between two overhanging curtains of rock, and widening beyond to form another tunnel. It’s the only way forward. Charles leading, stooped in his hunter’s crouch, they carefully pick their way past further stalagmites, Arthur’s left hand hovering out by his side to help his balance, limp fingers brushing against the cold stone.

Suddenly, gunshots. Loud. Clattering. They both stop, lantern swinging as Arthur turns to the approximate direction of the noise. It’s impossible to truly tell. Another shot, cracking somewhere unseen, stuttering. A man’s voice yells out, screaming as more shots sound, colliding into each other. Six in all. Then yowling, layered with the vicious drone of something animal, a pained snarling as the human voice cuts out.

And then, silence.

“Shit.”

Charles glances at him, wide-eyed and grave, then back to the empty cavern. His arm is braced, arrow ready. “Holmes?” Arthur shouts, voice echoing, and at once they start again down the new passageway, hurrying now, boots skidding on the loose ground.

“Winton Holmes?”

The tunnel loops back on itself, and rejoins the larger cavern further on, only at a much lower elevation, merging with it to form a kind of basement floor. Rock that lined that pit becomes their new ceiling, sloping deep into another well within the passage, a natural bowl where more debris has collected over time.

“Shit,” Arthur says again, breathing hard, and Charles stops before the object of his alarm, stooping carefully to inspect an aged, ragged corpse, laid out across the ground.

A man, though it’s impossible to tell how old he may have been in life, or even what colour his hair was, heavy with the stink of decomposition, flesh tattered and grey where it isn’t caked in thick, tarlike blood. His chest is open as if split with an axe, face ripped from the skull like a torn napkin, various entrails spilled over his gaping abdomen.

Arthur exhales, shaky. His hand finds the nearest wall. The smell is in his head, in his memory, a septic shotgun wound, his own acid vomit.

“Not a cougar kill,” Charles whispers, voice sharp and hurried. He gestures at the chest wounds as he gets to his feet, missing flesh clearly pulled and eaten from the man’s torso. His bow is held up once again. “She arrived later. Fed until the meat spoiled.”

“So she’s hungry,” Arthur manages.

“Most likely.”

Wincing at his watering eyes, Arthur hisses through clenched teeth, mouth wet as if in preparation for retching, tongue like a slab of cold meat. Lantern held high, trying to see as far as possible into the darkness, he can barely use his left hand to wipe his stinging cheeks, only dragging the back of his palm over his face, spitting to the side, trying to focus on the moment and not the shroud of memory always a second away.

“Holmes?” he shouts again, hoping anger might help. It doesn’t, but it’s better than bursting into tears. “Holmes, where are you?”

He rolls his aching shoulder as if to shake himself awake, and clambers up the sloping rock with Charles, away from the dead man, rifle knocking against his back. With his arm how it is, he knows he won’t be able to shoot properly, let alone aim at anything. The gun would be better off left with Belle and Taima, for all the good it will do in his lame hands.

“Please don’t get eaten by a cougar,” he mumbles, voice rough. Desperate. His eyes find Charles’, ahead of him, and hold them for a moment, wavering, blinking fast.

“As long as you don’t either,” Charles replies, just as quiet, the same restraint in his voice, emotion flickering like the flame within the lantern’s globe, earnest and warm.

Arthur huffs, and looks away, shaking his head. How does he get himself into these situations? And worse, how has he managed to entangle Charles in the mess? Just his luck to find a perfect man - more than perfect - only to end up getting him killed by a damn cougar.

Hopefully if she eats Charles, she’ll at least do Arthur the courtesy of eating him too. 

They descend further, ceiling so high that it isn’t visible in the glow from the lantern, tunnel widening as it winds along the edge of the initial larger cavern, spiralling into the earth below. Arthur shouts into the darkness, gravel in his throat, “Holmes! Don’t mess around with me, boy!”

Again, no answer comes. They keep moving.

A new chamber opens up. Stalagmites bar the path on their left ahead, rising to meet their counterparts hanging from above and forming a jagged blockage across one side of the space. A huge column dominates the rest of the chamber, and scattered around it are more bones, littered from wall to wall, at first glance looking like nothing but oddly shaped rocks, or strange white flowers growing around the trunk of a great tree. 

Ribs stand proud of the stone earth, knobbled vertebrae, short pastern phalanges and bevelled scapula, crushed skulls and random teeth. Some appear to be complete skeletons while others are clearly mismatched, some smashed like broken porcelain. The shards are strewn in the dust and debris and viscera, thrown like a soothsayer might cast down shells, pebbles, other assorted curios, to divine some kind of fortune from the pattern they create as they hit the floor. Or lack of one.

Many look to be deer bones, narrow skulls with pedicle lumps where antlers once grew, large eye sockets with distinct pits in front - for scent glands Arthur believes.

“Jesus,” he breathes, nudging one indistinguishable bone shard with his boot, lantern light clearly showing the amount of blood that covers the ground around the column, thick red stains pooled and dragged across the stone. “How much does this cat eat?”

Some of the bones have tattered scraps of skin and leather still attached, flesh glistening in the lantern light as they make their way through, silent and hesitant, slower than before, like the deaths of so many souls - animal or not - has made this granite corner of the mountain a sacred place, a mass burial ground, and just as unsettling to walk within.

It’s a graveyard. A mausoleum.

Further along the passage, the cave opens up again on their left, thick towers of rock on both sides like entrance columns to a grand house. The ground slopes upwards, a short incline decorated with yet more bare bones, and several shining stains, dragged uphill and pooled in the slightest divots. Fresh blood.

“Look,” Charles whispers, and nods towards the top of the slope, where again the tunnel walls seem to fold inwards and the space constricts, ceiling falling dramatically to form a rounded gateway, just tall enough to walk through. A white light comes from within. Arthur experimentally shields his lantern, holding it behind his own back. The light ahead remains, white and still.

They hurry forward, clambering up the slope and through the narrowed arch, a short depression in the floor creating a makeshift threshold, a mantle to the further cavern beyond. Crumpled within, lying in a fresh slick of dark blood, is another body.

“Shit.”

Lantern held up, light pools in the pit where he’s lying. It’s clear Winton Holmes is dead. 

“She got him,” Charles murmurs, looking grimly down at the contorted figure, unravelled and ripped, his jacket torn, soaked in the blood from his punctured neck.

“Goddamnit,” Arthur says, quiet, and crouches by Winton’s corpse, briefly shutting his eyes, the back of his hand held to his mouth.

A revolver lies a few feet away. It looks as though he fell forward first - his nose is smashed into his beard, hair congealed in a wet red mass at the back of his head, hat discarded outside the depressed well of stone. She pounced from behind. That any of the shots hit their target seems unlikely. “Damn dead debtor,” he mumbles, breathing through his teeth to lessen the copper stench of blood.

Charles is scuffing his boot across another spot of blood further up the slope. Arthur joins him, rubbing at his face. “Think she’s bleeding,” Charles says gravely, glancing back down at Winton. “Managed to hit her, at least.”

“Penniless idiot,” Arthur grumbles, though there’s no bite in it, just weary frustration. “Let’s just...find her ‘fore she hits us back. Sick of this damn pit.”

Nodding, Charles resets his grip on his bow, first two fingers brushing over the turkey pinions fletched along the shaft. Up, then down. He’s agitated, silently, and Arthur feels a tiny pang of pride that he is allowed to witness it at all, able to recognise the tension and flexion in Charles’ body language, the hasty contractions in the words his muscles speak. It’s rare he has to talk to communicate, and Arthur hangs on every letter, every movement of his tongue, wishing that maybe one day he’ll be fluent.

With another sigh, Arthur shakes his head. Now isn’t the time. Far from it.

Side by side, they proceed further into the tunnel. Looping again, the rock yawns outwards, and forms a new cavern alongside the very first they had come across, adjoined by a jagged window in the wall, too small to allow anything but an animal through. The darkness gapes, spilling from wall to undulant wall, towering stalactites obscuring their view, shadows cast across the ground. It’s hard to tell what is shadow and what isn’t, stalagmites and misshapen boulders invisible against the rock behind them, perfectly camouflaged until the lantern reveals them.

It’s disorientating, Arthur’s eyes quickly starting to conjure images in the dark, see motion where there’s none, and he concentrates on Charles’ movements to give himself some focus, something to keep his boots from slipping on the loose stone floor. From fearing something that isn’t there, rather than the thing that is.

Another slope. The ground pitches and falls, irregular, pitted like an ancient battlefield with deep furrows hidden in the earth, only visible once you’ve mostly fallen in. Arthur struggles, sticking to the walls, hand holding stalagmites like they’re staircase bannisters, keeping his failing feet beneath him as the two of them creep forward. Silence reigns, only his breathing audible, the creaking lantern handle, the slip and skid of his boots.

Charles stops. The lantern light sways. Nothing moves, nothing sounds. Arthur turns, redirecting the light, trying to find whatever it is Charles can sense, see her before she starts her charge, predict which rock she’s crouching behind.

“Charles?” he breathes, mouth barely moving.

He can feel the heat of Charles’ body, close as he dares to get on his offside. His nostrils are flared. The kerosene glow stills.

Fletching whispering, Charles draws his arm back in one movement, sharp. Strong. The bowstring bites into the skin of his fingers. Wavers. Waiting.

“Charles.” Arthur pants behind him, frantic, heartbeat in his head.

His throat constricts. No breath gets through. Nothing. There’s nothing. Nothing-

The warcry comes. With a snarling, bone-chilling scream, a white shape erupts from their left. Ears pinned flat, the cougar lunges.

Charles whips to face her. The bowstring cracks, and Arthur barely has time to yell before the cat collides with Charles, barreling into him, slabs of brick for paws, teeth like yellow shrapnel and aiming for his head.

“Charles!”

A flurry of hissing, spitting, bright white fur and the purple-red of his shirt, Charles falls backwards with a loud, dull thunk. His shoulder hits the ground.

Screeching, the cougar follows, tumbling over Charles’ head in a furious cartwheel and skidding into the opposite wall. Blood streams down her neck, muzzle bright and sticky, black lips curled over her teeth as she rights her balance, scrabbling claws on the stone, and again goes to charge, springing forward and up.

With his own snarl, Arthur surges upright. Lantern clattering to the ground, he shoves past Charles, and meets the second attack with the brunt of his forearm, crashing into the screaming cougar like a battering ram.

They topple to the floor in a blur of skin and fur, Arthur throwing his weight down despite the scraping claws, skidding across the stone with the force of momentum. She roars, shrieking at the crushing bulk of him, the black tartar on her gums shining, snapping, lunging for Arthur’s own wet muzzle, his bared teeth, grunting as he finally gets hold of his knife, finds her neck and plunges through flesh, tip crunching on the stone beneath her.

“Don’t you..._touch_ him,” he spits, an animal growling, snatching its breath as he pins the kicking cat down, blade embedded just inches below the single arrow shot cleanly through her throat, weeping pulsing blood from her jugular vein. “Anyone’s gettin’ mauled, it’s _me_, ya hellcat.”

Yowling, fast losing her strength, the cougar curls her lip to show blotched black gums, breath rancid, hot on Arthur’s skin. He holds her yellow gaze, furious, all his weight pinned on the knife blade, slicing further through the muscles of her neck with every attempt she makes to fight it, to wrench herself free. Her hind legs struggle, paw pads kicking at his jeans like a clumsy boxer’s punches, and slowly, agonisingly, blood begins to bubble beneath Arthur’s white hand, searing hot, gurgling from her throat with every breath she tries to take.

It only lasts a few seconds. Arthur pants through gritted teeth. Saliva flecks her twitching muzzle.

Heaving, snarling until the very end, she finally succumbs. Furious, and exhausted. Slow. Inevitable like sleep. Blood drowns her airway. She rasps, and goes still, staring. Unseeing. Her whiskers twitch.

Outside an abandoned shack in West Elizabeth - a place called Lone Mule Stead by locals - six weeks ago now, Arthur had sat back on his shivering legs, and pulled a knife from an eye socket. It had squelched. He remembers the sound. Strings of viscera had slid from the blade.

Inside a cave much further north, out of the proverbial woods and yet still so often smothered by that figurative canopy of trees, he sits back on the ground, panting, blood hot in the lines of his palm, mouth wet with the choking urge to retch, and this time isn’t alone.

Dimly, he’s aware of Charles’ eyes, the weight of his attention and presence beside him, brighter than the lantern, still flickering gently in the dark where it had fallen. The cougar’s weight slips limply to the ground, shifted from her last embrace, and the heady hunter’s high gets tangled somewhere in the pit of Arthur’s lurching gut, lost in the midst of traumatic memory, instantly focused on the fact Charles is watching him. Charles is with him on the cold ground. Charles is breathing, heart hammering, adrenaline sick beside him.

Kerosene soaks through the wick, drawn up to burn. The feeling fluoresces, thrilling and unwanted both, exhilaration and exhaustion, panic and passion. Nausea. Need. His toes curl in his boots. 

“Charles,” he rasps, desperate, though he doesn’t know what for.

“Arthur,” Charles breathes back, calm and constant by his side.

A hand touches his elbow. Arthur can feel the warmth of him in the still cave, feel his eyes, like fingers creeping down his spine, tangling in his hair, stroking up his thighs, his bloody hand, his panting chest. He is naked, with Charles, touched and bared and_ admired _despite it, witnessed in vulnerability and violence, watched with voyeuristic appreciation even at his lowest point. He is seen. Coveted. And Arthur both fears and loves it. Feels it thrill and terrify.

Finally turning his head, Arthur’s eyes find Charles’, shining in the light from the discarded lantern. His hair is tousled, pulled from its band at the nape of his neck, flyaway strands falling around his face. The high points of his cheekbones are bright in the light, glowing deep red with the exertion, and Arthur can feel his own face heat up as he stares, lingering on the scars that line his jaw, his shaven stubble, the bow of his lips.

He breathes, flicks his gaze back up to Charles’ eyes, watching them slink to the tiny gap between Arthur’s own lips, the bristles of his beard that overgrow his mouth. No part of him shies from Charles’ sight. He wants to be looked at, wants Charles’ hands, his hungry gaze, wants, _wants_. Like he’s never wanted anything.

He wants to be sick. He wants to cry. He wants Charles to hold him down and fuck him until he doesn’t know anything anymore.

For a silent, wavering second, they sit on the floor of the cave together, just breathing, staring. Suspended in the moment before they jump.

Arthur moves first. Breath like gunshots, he meets Charles in a plaintive kiss, pleading with him, choking a noise like a sob. Thick arms wrap around his hips and bring him in, holding him, keeping the fraying parts of him together, the fissures that have opened with the muscle memory, holding a knife in his hand, feeling the slip of blood through his fingers, the dazzling flash of a familiar, incomprehensible pain, searing through his torso.

And an undercurrent of something heavier too, confused and conflicted, the dazzle of arousal sitting deep in his gut, sparkling through his toes, up his spine, knowing Charles is with him, witnessing his violence, his deadly competence. Knowing he admires it. The two feelings can’t decide which needs to be addressed first, the panic or the desire, butting against each other inside him like the antlers of warring stags, growling desperate in his throat, his grabbing hand, the way his hips want to move of their own accord.

Both are twisted in the base of his backbone, arousal from the pressing weight of being witnessed and the mad terror of his memory, the width of the O’Driscoll’s thighs beneath his in the dirt, the scent of piss and blood and sweat, his frantic struggle as the knife had pierced his eye in the moments before he blessedly, horrifically died, the gurgling, the screams, the salt of tears-

And then Charles’ hand on him that evening in the woods, Charles stroking his hair, Charles’ teeth nipping at his neck, his tongue, his voice, his fingers. An arm clasped around him from behind as he sweats from fever, tender kisses pressed to his temple. God, he wants. _Wants_, desperately. The chiselled diamond of his back muscles beneath his shirt, the hard curves of his biceps taut as they anchor the bowstring, agile fingers knowing each arrow with practised intimacy, like it’s a lover, able to hit a charging cougar with less than split seconds before she-

“Arthur?”

“Mm-”

Arthur lingers as Charles breaks the kiss, nose pressing into his cheek, dominant hand clutching the back of his neck as if it’s the only thing keeping him breathing. His eyes don’t open.

“Still with me?”

“Mm…”

Hips sinking into Charles’ lap, Arthur can feel Charles is just as overcome as he is, caught in the strange space between thrill and horror, elation that they’re not dead and yet barely rationalising the knowledge they could have been. Very easily.

Arthur’s eyes flicker open. It’s only Charles, two eyes in his head, the most gorgeous shade of brown. Just Charles. And him, breathing the same air, existing within the same moment. Together.

“Always,” he whispers, and the kerosene lamp wobbles in his irises, beard prickly on Charles’ cheek.

Silent, Charles nuzzles his nose against the tip of Arthur’s, eyelids heavy, gaze settling on Arthur’s parted lips, seemingly just as overwhelmed by some heady kind of feeling, some _something_ as Arthur is.

He leans close, lips just barely brushing, eyes alight. The lantern seems to kiss him from the side, glowing, pooling in the cupid’s bow of his lips, shining slick and sticky across his cheek as though he’s covered in-

Arthur blinks then, awareness coming to him like a static shock. “Oh- Shit, I’ve just-” He sits back and snaps his hand from Charles’ neck like it burns, still red with the cougar’s blood, caked to his fingers. Blood now plastered all over Charles.

Handprints smudge across the breadth of his collarbones, everywhere Arthur had touched him in the daze of the kiss, smeared up his throat, clutching at his jawline. It’s like a butcher’s attempt at impressionist art. “S-Sorry, I wasn’t- Shit.”

Charles touches his own cheek. His fingers come away dripping with fast-coagulating blood. Thick and stringy.

Sudden and snorting, he laughs. “It looks like I’ve- Tried to kill you or somethin’, Christ, shit, I’m sorry, I should’ve thought-”

Charles is still laughing.

“Look at you, I’m-” Arthur weakly wipes a blood smear on Charles’ jaw, trying to dab it with his shirt cuff, unrolled to form a makeshift rag. “Damnit, it’s already drying- Quit laughin’ you bastard, this is absolutely your fault-”

“_My_ fault?” Charles gapes, eyebrows shooting up as he wrestles with his laughter.

“You make me so crazy sometimes!” Arthur snaps, gesturing at him like he’s shooing a fly. “Seein’ you with the bow and it looked like she was gonna get you, and I thought- Thought she- But that shot, God _damn_, you’re good with that thing. Just standin’ there with your-” He brandishes his hand again, scowling. “Your _body_ like somethin’ outta fuckin’ Michelangelo- And your perfect damn face and- Your _arms_ just- _There_! I swear to God, Charles, your arms should be in jail for reckless endangerment-”

“Wh-What?” Charles snorts, still laughing, painted grin wide and open, teeth catching the light.

“Look at ‘em, you’re like a fuckin’...tree, you reprobate, how’s a feller not s’posed to jump you? You’re a danger to my welfare.”

“Oh really?”

“Damn right really! Makin’ me act like a damn teenager, prick in his hand all day, can’t do nothin’ else.”

Pouting, his scowl entirely false and only making Charles laugh all the more, Arthur swats weakly at his chest. “I ain’t got the blood pressure to keep up,” he says, quieter, barely restraining his own smile as Charles continues to laugh. “That shot was… Best I ever seen. Easily. For a second, I thought- _Shit_.”

“I’ll try to be less competent in future,” Charles manages, biting back his grin, cheeks round.

“If you was less competent, we’d be dead as that poor fool Winton.”

“You killed her, not me.”

“Only with help.”

“We make a good team.”

Chuckling, Arthur shakes his head, and awkwardly rolls his aching shoulder. He deflates, breathing deep.

The both of them are unscathed by some miracle, only a few scratches where claws managed to rip through clothing, some pulled threads and torn seams, a spatter of blood across Arthur’s vest. His rifle is on the ground behind them, dropped with the lantern, and he recovers his fallen hat as he catches his breath, the memory of the last time he used a knife so violently fast fading to the realms of nightmares, bundled back into its cage.

All that stays is the relief that Charles is with him, a steady comfort, keeping him in the present. And then the pain, prickling past the high of adrenaline to spread throughout his torso. It grows more insistent as they sit together on the stone, now joined by a cold stiffness in his knees, legs bent beneath him.

He turns his attention to his right. The cougar lies where he left her, sprawled unbecoming on her back, paws spread wide, sickle claws like crooked fork tines. Even in the low light, he can see the colour of her fur, a startling and ethereal alabaster, starkly pale against the blood of her muzzle, the yellow of her teeth and staring eyes.

Whether her pelt will be worth any more than her tawny coloured cousins’, Arthur can’t tell, but in the stillness of the cave, her white coat almost glowing in the lantern’s dancing light, he wonders whether any price is worth her life. A predator is a predator, true, and he has heard of cougar attacks claiming lives in the most vicious way it’s possible to die, but _they_ had sought her out, purposefully invading her territory, so to justify her death with self-defence seems just as hollow as the cavern she has died in.

He leans across, and rolls her gently to her side, heaving her weight to a more natural position, her pinkish belly no longer exposed. Stupid of him. She doesn’t care for human modesty, or sensibility, but he feels better once it’s done, as though she deserves his careful respect, in life and death. A mighty, exceptional creature, fierce and deadly, and extraordinarily beautiful, even with the damage they’ve done to her. Rare indeed.

Perhaps killing her will mean some other poor fool’s life won’t end in the depths of the cave. Perhaps it will mean the folks of Strawberry sleep easier, knowing the mountain is a little less dangerous. But as he looks at her white body, lifeless now, still young, with as much right to life as he has to his, Arthur isn’t sure that’s a fair trade at all.

A hand finds his elbow again, comforting. “Come on,” Charles murmurs, slightly cleaner, having tried to wipe some of the blood from his face. He leans close for another kiss, his index finger gently lifting Arthur’s bearded chin, intimate and careful. Respectful, as if he knows what Arthur’s thinking, and is trying to reassure him, as he so often does. “Let’s go. You need to lie down, and now I need a bath.”

“Mm,” Arthur hums, still stuck in the curled points of the cougar’s claws, the lithe muscle of her legs, the foot length of her tail, stained with some blood from the cave floor. “Get outta this hole, ‘fore some other beast comes lookin’ for shelter.”

“Or food.”

Humming again, Arthur glances back down the passageway, towards the dip in the rock where Winton died. It’s a cold sort of feeling, one he can’t name, much the same as he feels upon looking at the cougar. Guilt, perhaps. He isn’t sure.

At any rate, the sooner they leave the cave, the better. And a bath sounds all the more welcoming.

Bones creaking, muscles stiff, they pick each other up from the ground, the lantern and rifle too, and collect one knife and one arrow, embedded in the cougar’s neck. Charles carefully hefts the carcass over his shoulder, carrying much more damage than a clean kill should, including one small gunshot wound, almost perfectly bisecting one rounded ear. Enough to cause pain, but an inch or two abreast of the shot that might have saved Winton his life.

Arthur sighs, trailing Charles back to the cave entrance. They both have scratches, forearms bearing the brunt of her claws in both attacks, and Arthur walks even slower than before, tense and pained, but as usual - and as is growing increasingly less tolerable the more frequently it happens - they were very, very lucky. Strauss has a lot to answer for, in Arthur’s layman’s opinion. Next time he’s asked to go collecting, he might just refuse, no matter how much trouble it gets him in.

Getting mauled to death isn’t worth a couple of dollars. Not to him, not to Charles, and it shouldn’t be to Dutch. It definitely isn’t to Winton Holmes.

Nor is it to the cougar. Why she should die for the colour of her coat, for a few dollars more than some other unfortunate animal, surely cannot be justified by the measly sum of Winton’s debt.

They make it to the entrance, Arthur slightly more out of breath than he’s willing to admit, both grateful for the fresh air and the waning daylight no matter how much colder it seems than inside the cave. While they pack away their weapons, and Charles secures the cougar carcass to the back of Taima’s saddle, Arthur introduces himself to Winton’s bay mare, who is pawing anxiously at the stone a short distance from the others, hooves leaving imprints in the dusting of snow.

There’s nothing of much value in her saddlebags, just a hip flask of water, a hoof pick, and some sugar cubes in a scrunched paper bag. He feeds some to her, speaking softly, letting her sniff his blood-caked hand, and apologising for the strange way it must smell.

She’s not the tallest Saddler, maybe just over 13 hands, but she isn’t old from the look of her, and seems sturdy enough. While even Belle had worried, the little bay had no qualms about the creek they’d ridden through, nor the climb up the mountain. Perhaps she’d be able to find a new home.

“Hey,” Arthur calls, gently rubbing the mare’s white nose, a pretty blaze striped down the length of her head. “You reckon the stable at Strawberry would take her in? Easier to just set her loose, I guess. She ain’t no value to us, but…”

“Sure,” Charles answers, over beside Taima. “Don’t see why not.”

Arthur brightens, and sets about looping her stirrups up, so they don’t bang against her sides with no feet in them. “Seein’ as her feller ain’t comin’,” he says, and sighs, ignoring the twinge of guilt that flares inside him. It isn’t his fault, or certainly not more than it’s Strauss’, or Winton’s even, but Arthur can’t help but see himself as the reason Winton was driven to such measures in the first place.

Maybe if he hadn’t taken the loan, he wouldn’t have been unable to repay it.

Maybe if Arthur wasn’t the man he was, he wouldn’t have pushed him to such lengths to _try_ to repay it.

“Chasin’ all over Hell’s half acre to try’n outshoot a cougar,” he grumbles, and leads the bay mare over to the others. “Like that ain’t gonna get you eaten. Your feller’s a fool, girl. A dead one.”

He huffs, sharper than before, chasing away another cold barb of guilt, caught behind his growl. It’s Thomas Downes all over again. Charles watches him from beside Taima, and says nothing.

From experience, he knows Taima is more willing to accept a newcomer into her personal space than older, more solitary Belle, so they spend a short while letting the two acknowledge each other more directly, more closely than simply waiting outside the cave in relative proximity. Taima is easygoing with others, and lets Charles tether the new mare beside her without problem, ready for the ride back to Strawberry.

The day is ending. Far too long spent riding, Arthur’s entire torso feels like a sack full of rocks, jostled about from Belle’s gait, knocking into his ribs from inside. He knows he’s pushing his luck, accepting so much work so soon, but after the debacle of Miss Grimshaw dismantling the tent around his wagon, and the nightmare that followed come dark, the camp hasn’t exactly felt the most restful place, nor the most welcoming, in recent times. It’s no convalescent home, no retreat where he might recuperate with a comfortable chair and a handful of grapes, and the others have started to remind him of that more and more vocally as the workload has piled up around them.

If it isn’t Susan making pointed comments about his lazy lack of work ethic, it’s Dutch loudly bemoaning the absence of Arthur’s name in the donations ledger, snapping all the more at Lenny and Kieran to pick up the slack in their daily chores. Micah and Bill have taken to outright taunting, about his cleanliness, his disability, his dependence on Charles, anything that can provoke a rise. Sean frequently rides in from Rhodes with tall tales about their latest escapades with the noble Gray family, stopping when he notices Arthur listening, and plucking some sarcastic joke from the orange fluff that fills his head about Arthur’s non-involvement, to the amusement of everyone else.

Food is less plentiful too, Pearson commenting on the lack of fresh supplies, wrinkling his nose when Charles manages to bring in a few skinned rabbits, a deer if he can spare the time. Even John and Javier have been acting hard-done-by, not withholding their sighs as another guard shift is required, another horse needs grooming, another chore remains undone. Despite John’s attempts at friendly conversation, the stilted, awkward efforts he makes aren’t exactly the high point of Arthur’s days.

Then there’s Hosea, creaking more each day, with every extra responsibility, every volunteered hour he gives up to fill Arthur’s absence. Lenny does the same, Sadie, Mary-Beth, Tilly, and Karen too, Abigail when she has a moment free. Even Uncle has been helping out, though with a great deal more complaining than the rest.

It’s difficult. Navigating all of them is almost as trying as the physical effects of his ordeal. And he can’t blame them for their irritation. He hasn’t been pulling his weight. Literally. Most days, he can barely carry a hay bale, barely make it through the night without some kind of outburst, some embarrassment or shame that no one but Charles will acknowledge come morning. Only Cain still seems happy to spend time with him. 

Arthur can’t help but feel undeserving.

But he’s trying his best. He’s trying to do all he can.

Charles says it’s likely to be months before he feels fully fit again, and doing too much too soon will only lengthen that time, but Arthur has always struggled with feeling like he isn’t, somehow, enough. Like he isn’t doing enough, being enough, and his very existence requires justification in the amount of work he can do, how much money he can contribute. At least by pushing himself, even if he is in pain, he feels slightly less useless.

Tonight though - the next few days if he dares hope - he can afford to set those doubts aside. They’ve completed their task for Strauss, and miraculously survived, so there’s no reason to feel guilty for taking time off to relax. Time he wants for him and Charles, that he doesn’t want to jeopardise with his ceaseless worrying.

“You good?” Charles is watching him, seated in his saddle, eyes drawn to how Arthur’s body struggles to mount Belle, how his legs shake from exertion, rips torn into the stitching of his jeans from the cougar’s claws. They’ll need repairing. He’s just thankful the denim came out worst, and not Arthur himself.

“Yeah,” Arthur says, laboured breath condensing in the cold. “Yeah. Fine. Bit sore, is all.”

“Let’s get back.”

“Mm.”

Belle starts at a cautious walk, more snow having blown across the track from the surrounding rock face. The two tethered mares follow behind, Charles pulling his chaotic hair back from his face with a new band as they begin the mountain descent, his skin and shirt a disconcerting shade of wet, dark red, starkly bright against the background granite, the last of the light glistening stubbornly in the snow.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [titanic voice] it's been 84 years
> 
> hello lovely people, thank you again for being so patient with me, and i'm sorry (as always) for how astronomically long writing is taking me these days. i'm managing about half an hour a day now, and you'd think being in national lockdown would give a person more time to write fanfiction, but.. it's a struggle rn for everyone i know. but i promise i'm still working on this story, and i'm so so grateful for every comment and every reader. it means the world that you're still here.
> 
> this fic is essentially finished, i'm just working on editing the remaining chapters, so i'll be posting them soon i promise! stay safe, stay home, look after yourselves ♥


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “H-Hey,” Arthur breathes. “Uh- Hey.”  
All he knows is he should have found Charles sooner. He should have turned the world over looking for him. He should have run to him, grabbed his hand, never ever looked back. If he had known a man like Charles existed, shared the same earth as him, looked up at the same stars as him; perhaps it would have seemed a far more worthwhile life to live.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> wherein arthur waxes lyrical about charles' body for like 36 pages and then has a breakdown

_O I have been dilatory and dumb,_

_I should have made my way straight to you long ago,_

_I should have blabb’d nothing but you, I should have chanted nothing but you._

The ride back to town doesn’t take long, sky growing richer with every ridge and granite outcrop, the creek water turning orange, churning with pink foam. Sunset guides them westwards, the daylight sinking into the basin across the foothills where the mirrored surface of Owanjila glistens just out of sight, and the lantern lights of Strawberry soon beckon, nestled at the base of the mountain, somehow seeming all the more homely in the golden glow of evening. Mud and manure don’t look as unpleasant with a pine forest sunset in the background.

They aren’t exactly inconspicuous, riding into town with three horses and a cougar between them, but Arthur slows Belle to a courteous walk as they near the first buildings, timber-framed with steep pitched roofs, the narrow tracks and wooden bridges barely wide enough for two-way traffic. He tips his hat at any curious face, carpenters and workmen heading home after a long summer day, scruffy children playing in the mud verges, simply-dressed ladies peering at the newcomers from the lantern-lit porches. To anyone who wonders, they’re only travellers, the cougar carcass explaining away their rough appearance to any alarmed eye, and - not for the first time - Arthur thanks whatever good sense he’d had to wear a mask the day Micah shot his way through the very streets they amble through, those few months ago.

If he hadn’t, he doubts they’d have made it this far. With good reason. It was Micah’s guns causing the damage then, killing several lawmen and injuring plenty more, but it still weighs heavily on Arthur, as if he’d been the one pulling the trigger and not just trying to escape with his head.

Across the bridge spanning the creek, more buildings line the dirt road, more ornate than the lodges and cabins surrounding the main thoroughfare. Some of the porches look freshly painted, siding covering the log walls in bright white. Posts and pilasters are decorated in contrasting colours and patterns, blues and greens, signs newly hung, oil lamps attracting moths around windowboxed balconies and decks. Elaborate spandrels underline each gable and dormer roof, trim dripping beneath the eaves like rows of clustered icicles. Conspicuously fancy for such a simple mining town; and just beyond the postcard grandeur, aged sluices and pulleys still stand tall above the awnings of market stalls, staircases built to span the cliff face and ferry supplies from top to bottom, relicts of a lost age of prosperity jostling uncomfortably against the freshly painted and the new.

The Welcome Centre sits at the top of the hill, tall and tiered like an expensive wedding cake. Hawk’s Eye Creek roars beside it, cascading through the centre of town, and Arthur leads them along the water’s edge, pointing out the butcher’s stall nestled beside the post office as they pass, noticeable only because of the elk carcass hanging behind it, spread-legged and split open at the breast.

They head to the stables first, further on down the road away from town, and leave Winton’s mare in the hands of the owner. He doesn’t ask questions when Arthur explains - plainly able to see the cougar’s body draped over Taima’s croup, and the fact both of them are more than slightly covered in blood - simply shakes his head, and mutters that it’s a nasty way to go.

The butcher’s stall next, Charles discussing the cougar with the proprietor while Arthur continues up the hill with Taima and Belle both, past the hotel on the right, which still seems to be closed, and securing them to the hitching post beside the Welcome Centre, loosening their tack, securing their reins and stirrups, slinging his satchel over his head. He settles there, leant against the post, and waits for Charles to rejoin him, watching the sunset in the distance.

“$41.80,” Charles says, a short time later, traipsing up the hill to the lodge with the dying orange of the sky behind him. His shoulders slump more than usual, but he looks nowhere near as tired as Arthur is sure he is, always managing to exude grace and composure no matter the fact there’s blood smeared all over his neck, and mud spattered on his boots. He stops just in front of Arthur, and his mouth moves at the corner.

Arthur sighs. “Repays the debt,” he says, and stands from the hitching post, wincing as his muscles creak. “Ain’t sure it’s worth a man’s life. Nor a cougar’s.”

“Mm.”

Expression stoic, Charles looks up at the building behind Arthur. For a building called the ‘Welcome Centre’, to Charles, it doesn’t particularly look that inviting. Strange, definitely.

It’s a towering log cabin set out over two floors, upper windows decorated with flowering plants in timber troughs, the wide porch framed with sprawling railings, branching around the doorway, reminiscent of antlers. As if the simple picket fence has gone out of fashion. The building’s frame is squat and square with pointed gables, roof tiles neatly stacked like roosting birds along the eaves. It looks like something that belongs in a fairytale, some children’s book about gingerbread houses deep in the woods, candy cane columns and spun sugar cornices.

“This us?”

“Mhm,” Arthur hums, adjusting his hat as they look up at the building. “Hotel ain’t open but last I was here, this fancy feller said they got a room upstairs, and a bathroom too. Think he was the ‘mayor’, actually. Had a top hat.”

“Huh. We got a story?”

“I came prepared, Mister Smith,” Arthur says, rolling his shoulder. “Play along.”

He turns from the hitching post, and Charles’ hand finds the small of his back where his suspenders button to his jeans, briefly touching as they climb the set of entrance steps, gone as Arthur pushes open the doors.

From behind, he can see how Arthur’s posture seems to brighten as soon as he steps into the porch light, drawn up and out from his spine through his shoulders like he’s plumped up the stuffing in his internal pillows. His weaker left side only hesitates slightly before every muscle is wrenched into submission beneath the fabric of his vest, like he’s laced himself into a tight costume, squeezed into new trappings like a second skin.

He stalks into the entryway, bathed in sudden light and demanding every attention as soon as the doors swing, drawing the very air of the place like filings to a magnet. It’s similar to the way he’d moved when introducing himself to Winton, but much less intimidating. The walk of a peacock rather than a predator.

He stands tall, authoritative, chest broad like Grecian marble and his hips the bowls of offerings beneath, and smiles a smile that could only be described as swarthy, the dripping grin of a fantasy hero, oozing with rugged charm like a slice of toast with butter. The young woman sweeping the floor inside visibly falters at the sight of him striding through the foyer - how he tips his hat to her and fondles his gunbelt buckle, thumbs the carved grip of his revolver in its holster - clinging to the handle of her broom as if her knees have gone weak.

Eyebrow raised despite how he tries to maintain a neutral expression, Charles follows behind this caricature Arthur, silent, and takes in the interior of the absurdly-decorated building they’ve walked into.

It’s warm inside, at least. A great brick fireplace dominates to their right, crowded with several wingback chairs, all jewel-tones and dark leather, red rugs spread on varnished floors, tapestry hangings covering the walls, velvet curtains at the windows. The word ‘luxury’ seems to be screaming from every corner, shoved forcibly upon them whether true or not, and Charles can’t help but feel slightly out of place amongst the very conspicuous extravagance, unused to the concept of proper beds let alone quilted furnishings and brocade cushions, stitched with satin piping and propped on a deep leather chair.

Oddly enough, there’s a bear beside the doorway, a giant taxidermied grizzly, frozen in a lifeless roar, standing as tall as the ceiling on his hind legs. He’s mounted on a plinth of bare wood, nails through his paws, and Charles eyes him as he follows Arthur, idly wondering if the multitude of teeth in his gaping maw are original, or another part of the show.

Past a particularly gaudy staircase on the left - bannisters carved in the same sprawling design as the outside fencing, decorated with candelabrum and a heavy runner, dark wood and exposed stone - a desk is lit by oil lamp, and a written description of the centre’s services sits proudly on top. Decapitated heads of various animals are mounted behind it and indeed all around them, deer and elk, a bighorn ram, even a timber wolf, similarly stuffed as the bear by the door, displayed like art.

A chandelier hangs towards the rear of the room - a bewildering configuration of what can only be shed deer antlers, arranged to create a frame and dominating the low ceiling, bracketed by solid oak beams and hanging above the strangest sculpture Charles has ever seen. Yet more taxidermy - a doe and a stag, forever stuck in glass-eyed motion against the far wall.

‘Rustic’ would be the proper term, Charles supposes, casting his gaze around at the oil paintings adorning the spaces where mounted heads don’t, the tasselled table lamps, the rich lacquer on the floorboards, the obscenely ugly wallpaper, and the smoking pipe beside the fire. Whether it is just a series of garish interior design choices, or a genuine love of blood sport, or perhaps both, Charles can’t tell. To him, it’s just unsettling. He sidles next to Arthur. Singularly out of place, like a weed at a flower market. He isn’t unfamiliar with the feeling.

The clerk behind the desk looks up from behind his spectacles as they enter the headache-inducing foyer, and fails to hide his reproach at the sight of them, rather dishevelled and covered in blood. He ropes in his expression like he’s wrestling a bull with his bare hands, dropping his copy of _The Blackwater Ledger _on the desk and scrambling up from his chair, eyes flicking from Arthur to Charles and back. As if the only way to receive two such questionable looking men is standing at his full height of about five foot six.

Arthur simply grins at him, tips his hat, body language something Charles has no translation for. “Howdy,” he drawls, and leans on one hip, jutted out beneath his hand like the swell of a milk jug.

“Uh-” the short clerk says. Again glancing at Charles, then back to Arthur, he meets Arthur’s jaunty smile with an automatic grin of his own, bushy moustache twitching into action above his mouth like a fearful mouse leaping out of reach. “G-Good evening, gentlemen, may I help you tonight?”

“Well, now, that sure depends,” Arthur says brightly, with a smirk that Charles wants to bite, the accent he adopts sounding remarkably like a snapped banjo string. “On whether y’all got any good liquor in this here town, and whether-”

He breaks off, pointedly looking to the woman with the broom, still attempting to sweep the floors around all the multicoloured rugs surrounding the fire. Arthur winks at her as he smiles sidelong beneath his hat, the end of his eyebrow raised. “Y’all know any fine and respectable young ladies I might be lucky enough to share it with.”

The maid giggles, and hides her smile behind her hand, cheeks round as harvest apples, diligently trying to look as if she’s still interested in the floor, and not the broad line of Arthur’s shoulders as he laughs, grasping the clerk’s hand to shake despite the fact it wasn’t offered.

“I’m teasin’! Don’t mind me,” Arthur says, laughing, loud and bellowing like a bullfrog. “What a _nice_ town you got here! Real cosy, ain’t like nothing we got back west. All the cosy’s gone and civilised itself, ain’t that right, Mister Smith?”

Arthur glances at him, but it’s clear Charles is just a prop in his constructed backstory. The clerk seems instantly bewitched, hanging on every word as if Arthur is the most fascinating man he’s ever met. Even if he is sporting several scratches and torn jeans, blood dried on his vest. Perhaps he is.

“Sure is, and a real shame too,” Arthur continues, barrelling into conversation like he’s assaulting someone. “You give me genuine traditional li’l towns like this over banks and labour laws and _property tax_ any day. And I just _love_ the bear you got there, I should get me one of them.”

The clerk laughs along with him, and listens so very ardently as Arthur spins a tale of a life lived ambiguously ‘out west’, of a lifelong friendship with the stoic ‘Mister Smith’ forged in the aftermath of when gold had flowed steadily through California, and mining was still a worthwhile profession for a young man whose Pa had died for the Union so many years ago and never got to see his boy grown. Of hunting trips taken twice a year, or thereabouts, with his truest friend, when work allows, reminiscing of their youth and how far away it seems now, odd jobs taken when and where - construction and carpentry mostly, though Mister Smith used to dabble in trapping, ain’t that right? Which is why he’s a sure winner when it comes to mountain lions, but they’d never seen one that big, now had they?

It’s a fanciful tale, but Arthur charms the clerk and the maid with her broom so expertly that Charles almost believes it himself, believes that Arthur is his childhood friend, his partner from decades and miles past, and that they have indeed had so many adventures together over the years since, working jobs where they come, a stint in the army, digging railroads, building, ranching, surviving. Drifting from west to east, north to south, from ocean to ocean and back again, wherever the road took them.

“Now I sure could do with a proper bed. I am _baked_. Been so long on the road, a feller’s liable to forget what a good bed is like. Preferably one with no cougar hidin’ in the bedsheets, ‘cause I had quite enough of them for one day, let me tell ya.” Another bout of laughter, tinny like it’s come from a can. Even the maid giggles, watching them openly now, as mystified as the clerk is. “We’ll take two rooms from y’all good folk,” Arthur declares, with his vaudeville smile, painted on his bearded cheeks like whitewash. “For the night comin’. Oh, and I don’t wanna hear no hagglin’ on price, ‘cause we got money, don’t you worry. Whatever it costs, we’ll pay it. Don’t be tellin’ nobody, but we made a fair wage care of a mighty profitable li’l logging venture recently. Name of Appleseed Timber, not far from here - maybe you heard of it?”

“I’m...afraid we only have the one room, sir,” the clerk admits, hesitant, his hands clasped together as though praying not to lose Arthur’s attention. “And- I must apologise. Just the one bed, too. The hotel, you see, it was due to open some weeks ago, but…”

Arthur feigns disappointment, perfectly crafted. He’s like an actor up on stage, an expert study in the most human art of lying through his teeth. “Hm,” he hums, and looks pensively at Charles, as if seriously considering turning and walking out. The clerk visibly wavers, crestfallen, afraid to lose such illustrious business. It’s like he’s wanting on news of an ill relative instead of listening to Arthur’s posturing. 

“Well… If you got clean sheets and a hot bath, maybe breakfast too, I’m sure that won’t be no problem,” Arthur says, the most lilting, baritone drawl in his voice, almost musical. It’s no wonder the maid can’t keep her eyes off him.

“Me and Mister Smith here? We been friends since we was knee high to grasshoppers - or _I_ was, he was always a tall drink of water - and we shared a floor to sleep on since before even that, so I am certain we can manage. For the sake of a good night’s sleep in this fine establishment of yours.”

The clerk nods manically, relief softening his ruddy face. “We’ll draw lots for the bed!” Arthur continues, as though it’s all a delightful game, the character he’s playing intent on talking the staff into submission. “Though - and you ain’t heard this from me - he’s got a sharper eye than Holliday, and he’s just as tricky to beat. Can’t get nothin’ over on this feller, I tell you. Faro’s your game, ain’t it my friend?”

Charles meets Arthur’s dripping grin with the blankest expression he has. Unable to hide his amusement, Arthur laughs, but it isn’t _his_ laugh, not even close. Someone else’s, dressed up in his lips. Wearing his teeth. The young maid watches his mouth. 

“And he snores like there ain’t stripes on ‘coon tails too!” Arthur adds, a braying grin thrown across his face, loose and hollow. The maid giggles along with the two men, hands wrapped around the broom handle. There’s a flush in her cheeks.

Charles bites the inside of his lip. His nostrils are flared. “But I put up with him for this long… As he’s put up with me,” Arthur says, still laughing. “And I surely would not wish to make no mess on account of murdering him all over your nice clean floors, sweetheart. Is this oak? You done a beautiful job, my Lord, I hope this feller pays you handsomely and then some.”

The maid giggles again, smiling sweetly at Arthur’s wink. Charles considers kicking him in the shin.

“I know we make an odd pair, us two. Bet y’all’ve never seen a queerer couple in this neck of the woods, I’m sure, but it’s like I always say, don’t I Mister Smith? I always say - you can’t choose your family in this life, but you can choose your brothers, and this feller’s my brother, true as if by blood.”

Wrapped completely around every one of Arthur’s fingers, the clerk shakes Arthur’s hand again, praising such a ‘fine and noble sentiment’, and what a fine and noble gentleman Arthur is, who is most welcome in Strawberry. The room is theirs for as long as they wish to stay, and the young maid will of course fill the bath as soon as possible, while the clerk fetches the farrier from across town to stable and feed their horses. Free of charge, of course.

It’s a masterclass in bullshitting. Even Charles is impressed, sharing an imperceptible glance with Arthur as they’re escorted up the ugly staircase, Arthur just able to rein in his smirk.

The clerk directs them to the upstairs room, across a small landing complete with more ornate furniture, and pauses to share a further word with Arthur before he leaves them to their evening. Watching from the doorway, Charles glimpses the folded notes Arthur presses into the man’s hand from his satchel, and the tail end of the conversation, the clerk assuring him they will not be disturbed, nor will there be any trouble with locals, staring wide-eyed at the amount of money Arthur gives him in exchange for his word.

“Have a- Have a very, _very_ good evening, sirs,” the clerk says, tucking the cash into his breast pocket, pushing his spectacles higher on his nose. He seems dazed, round face and paunched cheeks making him look rather like a squirrel who has just spotted a particularly attractive nut. “Your bath will be ready shortly. Please, do not hesitate to call on me for any need you have during your stay. Any at all.”

“Thank you kindly,” Arthur drawls, smiling the same viscous smile, like a child with a mouth full of syrup, gummed around his teeth. “I am sure we’ll rest easy. Goodnight now.”

“Goodnight sirs.”

The door closes behind Arthur’s preening posture with a satisfying click. Instantly deflating, he leans heavily against it, sinking as he lets his shoulders fall, head bumping back on the wood. His hat falls forward over his face, and he breathes, deep and tired. “Finally.”

Charles huffs, exhaling the slightest chuckle. “That was…”

“Why you don’t let Hosea teach you no life skills.”

Another chuckle. Charles is watching him. Watching Arthur emerge from whatever costume he'd been wearing. His Arthur. The voice he knows, the body language he recognises. “Who knew you could be so charming?”

Taking off his hat, Arthur smirks, head tipping back to rest on the door again. He crumples in the middle, sagging like an underdone cake. One blue eye opens. “You sound impressed, Mister Smith.”

“_Charles_, please. We’ve known each other since childhood. Or was it just a few months?”

“Y’know, I ain’t sure myself sometimes.”

Arthur shuts his eyes again, free hand rubbing absently at his shoulder. It may come easily to Hosea, spinning yarns long enough to knit an entire town, but it always saps Arthur’s energy. Still, hopefully the clerk won’t suspect he’s anything but an overly talkative tourist, and the cash in hand is enough to keep him from asking too many questions. The fewer risks they take, while so far from the gang and some modicum of safety, the better.

There’s a sound of rustling fabric, and then Charles’ thighs bump into his own, effortlessly pressing between his legs to stand against him, creaking into the heavy door. Arthur opens one eye again, peeking up at Charles’ face, now inches from him, crowding out his every sense, his shirt clinging to the swell of his belly, overhanging his jeans.

“Hey,” Arthur says, in his own voice, and tosses his hat to the floor so he can snake his hand inside Charles’ open vest, take in the bulk of his waist, feel his warmth radiating through his shirt.

“Hey.”

“You good?”

“Mhm.”

Charles hums, pressing closer. His hands take Arthur’s hips, bringing them flush against him. “You amaze me,” he says, voice low and sinking further, forehead leant against Arthur’s. His eyes are dark, rich like the wood furniture in the foyer, varnished bright.

“‘Cause I can bullshit our way into a hotel?”

Arthur can barely flash his grin before Charles has his lips captured, prying lazily at his mouth, so ardent that it makes Arthur’s eyelashes flutter. He whimpers, only just able to understand English when Charles keeps talking, words hot on his lips. “Everything you do. Everything you are,” he says, breathes, punctuating his own words with kisses, hands large on Arthur’s hips, smoothing up over his sides. “You possess me. You have me wrapped around your smallest finger, like that clerk and his…giggling housemaid-”

“Oh,” Arthur chirps, and buries his smile in Charles’ eager lips, only managing to speak when Charles slips across to his cheek, nipping through his beard, lips brushing over the prickling hair, singleminded as he presses into Arthur’s hips, pinning him to the door. “_Oh_\- You’re- You were jealous!”

“Perhaps,” Charles growls, and bites his jawline.

Arthur simply snickers, dragging his good hand over the back of Charles’ neck, pulling him back to his lips to kiss him, deep and greedy. “Now who’s acting like a teenager?” he breathes, teasing, delighting in the threat of Charles’ teeth on his cheek, the obvious hunger of his hands, only just under control.

Charles huffs, sucking a patch of Arthur’s neck until the blood vessels burst into a speckled bruise, and Arthur exhales hard, fingers tight against Charles’ scalp, aiming to tug at the band in his hair before he has to hold his shoulder for balance, knees threatening to give out at the sharp sting of the bite. “Just weak for pretty faces,” Charles mumbles, and meets Arthur’s laugh with his own smirk, swallowed by more kisses, hands moving to grope Arthur’s ass.

Arthur has his mouth on Charles’ Adam’s apple before he remembers the state they’re both in, fingers finding a streak of congealed blood smeared across Charles’ collarbone, and recoiling just enough to snort as he realises, breathless as he laughs. “You, uh… You wanna get cleaned up a bit first? ‘Fore we get cougar guts all over the fancy furnishings.”

“Ah,” Charles says, blinking at his fingers, the blood on them. “Right.”

He chuckles low and rumbling, unembarrassed yet clearly flustered, and reluctantly steps away from Arthur, letting him move from the door and actually enter the room at last.

The decoration is much the same as downstairs, dark wood and heavy fabric, reds and purples, patterned walls. An elegant double bed dominates the space, velvet throw folded neatly at the foot of it, and Arthur can’t remember the last time he saw a bed so large, let alone slept in one. A washstand is opposite them in front of a hanging mirror, a basin and several jugs of water set out atop the surface. Clean towels and linens are folded beside a men’s grooming kit, complete with an array of bottles, various lotions, soaps, oils and ointments.

Arthur hesitates to touch anything. Both of them seem rather out of place in such luxury.

Busying himself with the basin, Charles takes off his open vest, and washes the worst of the blood from his neck, scrubbing at the parts that have dried. The water in the bowl steadily turns pink while Arthur sets their belongings down on the chest at the end of the bed, only gingerly sitting on the mattress once his gunbelt is taken off. His own vest too. It sags pleasantly beneath his weight, and he sighs, rubbing absentmindedly at his bearded chin.

“It irritates you,” Charles says, watching him from the washbasin.

“Hm? Oh. Yeah. Way too long.”

“Shave?”

“Yeah, I just- Ain’t sure my arm… One-handed’s askin’ for trouble, I’d probably manage to lose an ear or somethin’, and I-” He sighs again, shrugging the one shoulder. “Guess I can’t really find the energy to...bother tryin’, y’know?”

“I know. I meant-” Charles says gently, and Arthur looks at what he’s showing him - the grooming kit beside the basin. “I could do it for you. If you want.”

A small hand mirror sits before the hanging one, and a straight razor beside it, various brushes and a pot of what must be shaving cream. Charles picks up one of the ointment bottles to read the label before setting it down again. He looks at Arthur across the room. “Bath won’t be ready for a bit yet.”

“You- I mean… You don’t mind?”

“‘Course not.”

Frowning as he thinks, Arthur again rubs his chin. It’ll be worse than Bill’s beard soon enough, tatty and likely brimming with nondescript crumbs, even uglier than it already is, and he just can’t seem to get used to the feeling of it at all. Stubble is fine, even a short beard, but how anyone copes with the full works is beyond his understanding.

“You ever shaved anyone before?” he asks, getting stiffly to his feet to sit in the washstand chair, looking up at Charles in the reflection of the wall mirror. “Except yourself.”

“Nope,” Charles says, standing behind him.

“Well if I get my throat slit, I’m blaming you.”

“That’d be a shame. You’d bleed all over that young woman’s ‘nice clean floor’.”

“Shut up,” Arthur huffs, stifling a smile.

It’s not exactly a barbershop, but it's comfortable enough. While Charles empties the pink basin water, pouring it out into the planter just outside the window, Arthur rifles through the bottles and tubes atop the table, reading labels, setting out what they’ll need. There’s a brush, boar bristles probably, a pot of shaving cream, a small bowl to lather it in, and a straight razor, blade folded into a carved horn handle. Arthur unfolds it, eyeing the edge of the blade.

With the rest of the supplies is a handheld strop, a wooden paddle covered with leather on one side and canvas on the other. Setting the razor down, Arthur goes to pick up the strop, and only then realises he can’t hold it steady enough with his left hand while working the blade with his right. Shutting his eyes, he sighs, and Charles’ hand appears on his shoulder a moment later, slipping up to cup his cheek.

“Hey,” he says, and strokes his thumb over Arthur’s cheekbone.

“Hey.”

“Still good?”

“Mhm. Just the usual.”

“I know,” Charles murmurs, and leans down, pressing a kiss to his forehead. “Relax a moment. I’ll do it.”

He refills the basin with clean water, and Arthur sits deep in the chair, tipping his head back while Charles gets to work. Scrunching up a hand towel, Charles wets his face, scrubbing lightly at his beard until Arthur snorts, nose tickled. Charles then dabs the wet towel on his nose, and Arthur laughs.

Next is the cream, Charles lathering some white soap and water in the bowl to create a soft, whipped mixture. Standing behind Arthur, he loads the bristle brush, and covers Arthur’s beard, layering the cream over his cheeks and jawline, trying to catch every hair that grows down his neck. Arthur wrinkles his nose. It’s been so long since he shaved himself, let alone had someone else do it that the sensation is unfamiliar. Yet there’s something reassuring about the routine of it, an order that has to be followed, rhythmic and dependable. And Charles is nothing if not thorough.

Charles pauses by his side, stropping the razor with the paddle, smoothing the blade up and down the leather. The weight of his gaze is noticeable to Arthur, who peeks one eye open, looking up at him in the reflection of the mirror. “S’rude to stare,” he mumbles, trying not to open his mouth too much, covered in shaving cream as he is.

“Just admiring,” Charles says gently.

Arthur chuckles, lips turned up. “Ain’t fair when I can’t admire back.” He keeps his eyes open, head leant back to watch as Charles again stands behind him, picking the best angle to start shaving.

Gentle, he rests his free hand in Arthur’s hair, pulling the skin of his cheek taut beneath his thumb. The razor balances perfectly between thumb and forefinger, and Charles holds it almost flat to Arthur’s sideburn, trimming the scruffy border in line with his ear. “Thought my face was distracting,” Charles says, voice low and thick, whether just from tiredness or something else, Arthur can’t tell.

“Oh it is,” Arthur replies, just staring up at him, watching the concentration in his expression.

“What did you say, in the cave? Somebody...Angelo?”

Huffing his chuckle, Arthur tries to smile until Charles clicks his tongue, thumb smoothing out the swell of his cheek, razor blade hovering just above his skin. “Sorry,” Arthur mumbles, trying to return to a neutral expression so Charles can continue. “It was uh… Michelangelo. He was some...I’unno, Italian feller. Artist. Sculptor. In that… The, uh, Ren… Renaissance?”

“Huh,” Charles says, stroking the toe of the blade along the edge of Arthur’s upper jaw. “An artist?”

A gentle scraping is all that sounds, the razor’s edge easily removing the hair. Charles wipes the excess cream on the wet hand towel, careful, methodical in every movement. Eyes heavy-lidded, Arthur watches, caught by his calm, confident touches, his concentration, the gentle press of his fingers and thumb.

“Had a book,” Arthur explains, gaze slipping to watch Charles’ lips. “Art history and such. Talked about how he painted some church ceiling. And made...sculptures. Statues. Of men often. Nude. Male figure, y’know?”

“And I remind you of his sculptures?”

Eyelashes flickering, Arthur huffs, dropping his gaze. The smile playing with his lips is shy, almost, or- Inexperienced, perhaps. As if whatever is on his mind is new to him, something rarely thought about. Rarely indulged. “Maybe if we share that bath,” he says, quiet for his unmoving mouth, voice caught in his throat. “Reckon I’ll get to confirm it.”

One eyebrow raised, Charles simply smirks, admiring the new flush in Arthur’s cheeks, the hesitant way he brings up his eyeline, still tiptoeing into every interaction, after all they’ve been through together. It makes Charles’ heart flutter.

Humming his approval, Charles adjusts his grip, tilting Arthur’s head to find a better angle. He skirts around the chair, working in small sections from one side to the other, from cheek to jaw. The blade never pulls, effortless in Charles’ hand, stroking the overgrown hair from Arthur’s skin as a hot knife cuts through butter, a wiry rasp all that sounds between them as he works.

Before long, his cheeks are bare, sideburns neatly trimmed, and after the tricky spot beneath his nose, managing to make Arthur laugh again with how he pinches the skin, Charles moves on to his neck, applying some more soap in fluffy white peaks.

It’s then that he decides standing behind Arthur’s chair will no longer work. A high back in his way, Arthur can’t tip his head back far enough to let Charles reach his throat, and it isn’t a particularly pleasant place to be cut with a straight razor. Instead, Charles shifts between the chair and the washstand, gesturing for Arthur to spread his legs before he clambers into his lap, sitting backwards on the chair, chest to Arthur’s chest.

“Hi,” Arthur says, now face to face, barely six inches between them. His eyes flick to Charles’ lips, instinctive.

“Hi.”

“You weigh a ton.”

“Muscle.”

“Pff- Sure.”

“You like it.”

Snorting, Arthur barks a laugh, and settles his head back as far as he can, legs bearing the brunt of Charles’ thick thighs. He can’t argue with that.

As Charles resumes the shave, pulling his skin taut to carefully follow the grain of his hair, Arthur again gets lost in simply watching him, observing past the end of his own nose. Concentration is a beautiful sight in Charles - as if any expression isn’t - his eyebrows low, eyes focused, lips parting every so often to let his tongue lick across them, held briefly between his teeth as he tackles a particularly tricky angle.

His weight sinks between Arthur’s legs, backside just perched on the seat beneath, and Arthur can feel every movement in his thigh muscles, every tilt of his hips, every flex and tense, every breath. Charles rocks against him, bending to new angles, hands expert on Arthur’s face, steel blade caressing his Adam’s apple, kissing the bruise Charles had sucked into his skin not a quarter hour ago.

Arthur’s breathing picks up. Gingerly, he lets his left hand rest on Charles’ thigh. Unmoving at first. His fingers are still weak - fine motor skills are basically impossible - but he can feel the texture of his jeans beneath his fingertips, can follow the outside seam up, blunt nails pressing ever so slightly into his leg.

The right hand mirrors the left, settling on Charles’ thigh, palms spread across the width of them, unable to take in the whole breadth even with his hand outstretched from thumb to little finger. 

Charles’ quadriceps muscles tighten. Thumb stretching the skin of Arthur’s throat, the blade pauses, excess shaving cream wiped on the wetted towel, now folded over Arthur’s shoulder. Then, undeterred, the motion starts again.

Tipping his head back even further, Arthur can feel each hair, each gentle pass of the razor over his throat. The steel isn’t cold, yet he still suppresses a shiver, shifting beneath Charles’ hips, slumping slightly in the chair as he relaxes.

It pushes his own hips further along the seat. Again the blade pauses, and he feels Charles’ exhale, heavier than before. Arthur lets his eyes fall shut. He clenches his own thighs. Charles’ centre of balance is rocked, tipped just slightly closer. The metal of his belt buckle clinks, rolled into the button of Arthur’s jeans.

When Charles speaks, his voice is a growl, achingly low. “I’ve got a blade to your throat,” he murmurs, pointedly stroking the razor over the bruise he’d kissed into his neck, teasing at the growing hair.

“Mm,” Arthur hums, unable to hide his appreciation. “I know.”

Charles shifts, barely noticeable until Arthur feels the weight of his ass roll further into the cradle between his legs, almost completely pressed together. Again his breath falters, opening his mouth to exhale. The hands on Charles’ thighs squeeze, and the right starts to climb, creeping over Charles’ jeans to where the fabric bunches and folds, tight at his groin.

Breathing heavier, Charles tries to focus, working his way over every patch of hair growth with the razor, attempting to ignore the wandering hand now tracing the fly of his jeans, playing with the stitching. “You’re gonna lose your head,” Charles breathes, hot on Arthur’s shaven chin. “Before this vacation’s even started.”

“Don’t mind. Ain’t got much sense in it anyway,” Arthur says, a deep purr in his voice, hand now mapping the swell of Charles’ ass, obscenely round, like a ripe peach. “You… You make me so crazy.”

Finally reaching the opposite side of Arthur’s neck, shaving the last patch of hair beneath his jawline, Charles hums, rolling his hips and delighting in Arthur’s squirming beneath him. “Like you do me,” he growls, wiping the blade on the towel before setting it down on the table behind them.

Ideally, two passes would make for a closer shave, but Charles knows Arthur prefers to look a little scruffier than perfect. Besides, there’s much more important matters to attend to.

Wetting the towel in the basin again, Charles wipes Arthur’s face, removing all trace of shaving cream, and locates a pot of scented balm, twisting in his seat in Arthur’s lap. When he turns back, Arthur is watching him, looking up from beneath his eyebrows, lips slightly open as he breathes. He’s handsome with a beard, but seeing him almost clean-shaven after so long, so much injury, so much stress; is a gorgeous sight, highlighting the angles of his jaw, his cheekbones, his lips. The dent in the tip of his nose. The gouge in his chin. The laughter lines around his mouth. Every scar is newly visible, every curve and plane, shining in new colour, new paint.

Michelangelo, whoever he was - Charles doubts he could have dreamt a man as beautiful as Arthur.

Fingers gentle, Charles smooths some of the balm into Arthur’s freckled cheek, then the other, rocking forward to lean against Arthur’s chest. Thumbing the prominent scar on his chin, he lets his weight tip further into Arthur’s lap, feeling the hitch of his breath, a pink flush starting to creep its way over his cheeks.

“You’re beautiful,” Charles says, voice barely a whisper. Arthur’s eyes slink upwards to meet his, pupils blown, eyelids almost falling closed. His hand squeezes, still pawing at Charles’ ass, and the resulting tense in Charles’ thigh muscles makes him snicker, smile lazy, dazed.

“Thought you liked my beard?” Arthur mumbles, able to feel Charles’ breath on his cheek, watching his lips.

“Mm, I did. Like it shaved too. I like you any which way.”

Arthur snickers again. With his arm wrapped around Charles’ hips, he rolls his own upwards. The chair creaks beneath them. “You ain’t seen me any which way,” he says, delighting in Charles’ rough exhale, the way his perfect expression falters, momentarily snagged beyond control.

“I want to,” Charles replies.

He meets Arthur’s heavy gaze, thumb stroking the last of the balm over his chin before he takes hold of it, and kisses him. Hard.

Arthur sighs through his nose. Swapping hands, he’s instantly pulling the band from Charles’ hair, burying his fingers at his crown, the left arm weakly clinging to his hips, keeping him close enough that the weight almost hurts. Charles’ jeans are pressing at his belly, hard denim rocked insistently forward, an instinctive need for the friction of motion.

The chair creaks again with the movement, but neither of them notice, Charles busy unbuttoning Arthur’s shirt, slipping his suspenders from his shoulders, pushing his hand beneath the fabric to paw at his bare breast. Bandaging covers his left chest, anchored over his shoulder and under each armpit, and Charles instinctively manages to avoid even touching it, knowing the topography exactly, like Arthur is a script he has learnt by heart.

He kisses him all the while, free hand brushing back his hair, stroking his newly smooth cheek, and though he notes the lack of prickly beard, the loss of that peculiarly wonderful sensation, he doesn’t mourn its passing. Kissing Arthur is a gift, a treasured thing, no matter his appearance.

And he makes sure Arthur knows it, kisses slipping from his mouth down to his chin, the scar there, hand tight in his hair to pull his head back, allow him access to his neck. The balm has a taste on his tongue, sweet and slightly soapy, but it hardly matters with Arthur’s hips rocking on the rickety chair, Arthur’s hand creeping beneath his shirt to fumble with his belt buckle, Arthur’s breath hot and loud by his ear. Nothing matters but Arthur. Has anything ever mattered more than Arthur?

Deciphering the clasp of Charles’ belt with his one hand is a small victory, and Arthur makes the smallest noise of triumph as he pulls the leather from its keeper and through the buckle, granting him space to palm at Charles’ jeans, feel the shape of him beneath the folded denim. He hurries to the first button of his fly, thighs clenching when front teeth nip his throat, tongue on his pulse. Charles’ fingers grip his hair. The buttons come free. Arthur’s hand dips within, groping for him, pawing at his underwear.

There’s a knock at the door.

The chair’s legs almost buckle with how quickly they both stand up. Scrambling upright, Arthur nearly falls back towards the bed, stumbling away from Charles as if burned. Charles does the same in the opposite direction, knocking into the washstand as he unfurls his shirt, covering his open jeans with its length.

The knock comes again. They both stare.

“Sir?” A soft voice sounds. The maid from downstairs. “Just lettin’ you know your bath’s hot and ready for you next door!”

“Christ alive,” Arthur breathes. 

He wobbles in place, ankles protesting the sudden movement, and torso almost as angry.

“I sure hope it’s to your satisfaction, sir,” the maid calls again, almost offensively chirpy. Like a bird that insists on singing its dawn chorus before the sun has even come close to rising. “If you need anythin’, you just holler. I’ll come runnin’. Anythin’ at all.”

Finally Arthur finds his voice in the depths of his rib cage, low and rough. “Uh. Thank you!” he calls, glancing at Charles, eyes wide like polished coins. “Thank you, miss. I will call if...a need arises.”

The noise Charles makes is part snicker and part snort. He bites his bottom lip, clearly wrestling with laughter.

“You have yourself a pleasant night, sir,” the maid says, smile in her voice, and in the silence they can hear her footsteps retreat across the outside landing, the staircase creak as she descends.

Charles breaks first. He looks at Arthur, and can’t help laughing, relief and amazement more than humour. His hair resembles some kind of black tumbleweed, mussed by Arthur’s hand, shirt pulled askew and hardly concealing the fact his belt is hanging undone beneath it. As soon as Arthur looks at him, he’s laughing too.

“Damnit,” Arthur breathes, just as flustered as Charles is. His hair is sticking up at the back, giving his head the appearance of a displeased porcupine, shirt crooked on his collarbones, suspenders looped limply from his jeans. “It ain’t funny, quit laughin’.”

“_You’re_ laughing,” Charles snickers, voices kept hushed in a theatrical stage whisper.

“Scared the shit outta me-”

“Forgot we even asked for a bath.”

“Me too. Shit.”

“It isn’t funny,” Charles agrees, though he’s still trying not to chuckle.

They’re both idiots. Complete fools.

Unsteady on his feet, Arthur lumbers the few steps back to Charles, and leans heavily into his open arms, slumping against his chest. He’s flushed, still breathing hard, and Arthur can feel the heat of him through his tousled shirt, the strong, protective curl of his arm around Arthur’s back, keeping him close. Safe.

They stand together for a moment, recovering their breath, and Charles doesn’t dwell on the flash of fear he’d seen on Arthur’s face as the first knock came, nor the instinctive recoil of his own, gunshot fast, and for a second, just as dangerous. It’s better to laugh about it than linger on the what ifs.

This night is theirs; damn all else.

Charles kisses the top of Arthur’s head, admiring his clean shave when he tips his chin up. “Not bad,” he murmurs, free hand stroking his smooth cheek with the backs of his fingers. “Does it feel better?”

Arthur steps back from his chest, leaning to peer into the washstand mirror. He pulls a face. “Still stump hole ugly-” His gaze meets Charles’ in the reflection, smirking at his chiding scowl. “-But better. Much better.”

Turning back to Charles, he sighs, and smiles. “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome,” Charles says, soft and fond.

“Now let's wash off some of the dirt and blood we’re covered in, and maybe we’ll pass for the respectable gentlemen I said we was.”

“Your prick’s hard from getting shaved. Don’t think you’re too far gone for ‘respectable’?”

Arthur stares at him. With a snorting noise like a snorkelling whale, Charles laughs, and it’s such a beautiful sincere sort of sound that Arthur almost forgets to look offended.

“You-” he snaps, fumbling with his own smile just from the sight of Charles laughing, so uncaring as to how he looks, so gorgeous and uninhibited and _comfortable_. Comfortable with him. With Arthur.

“You, Mister Smith- Are a bastard. A cheeky, no good, rotten-”

“Uh huh.”

“-Reprobate bastard.”

“You wouldn’t be sweet on me if I wasn’t.”

“Shut up and go take that bath.”

“Yes, sir,” Charles says, still snickering as he turns towards the bed.

There, he takes off his shirt, then his boots and socks, and Arthur can only watch as he leans against the washstand, again struck by how handsome Charles truly is. Although slightly undone, hair astray, jeans open, lips kiss-flushed, he still manages to exude a perfect grace in everything he does, even something as mundane as taking off his boots. He moves like Arthur thinks a dancer must move, or perhaps someone trained in some kind of martial art, every step deliberate, every shift of his weight controlled and purposeful. To witness him laugh and snort and make jokes, blush, pant for breath, strive for touch, tense and clench- It’s an incredible privilege. A mad, inexplicable fantasy, that Arthur cannot fathom is truly meant for him.

“Will you join me?”

“Huh?” Arthur blinks, gaze snapping up to Charles’ questioning face. “Sorry- What?”

“Will you join me?” Charles says again, looking up at him from the bed, a gentle hesitance in his expression. “In the bath. If you want to.”

“Oh,” Arthur says, mouth turning up at just one corner, crooked across his face. 

Even though he’d suggested sharing the bath in the first place, it was little more than teasing. He hadn’t genuinely thought Charles would want to. “I was kidding, you don’t gotta, if you’d rather- Uh. I mean, sure, I’ll- Yeah. I could do with-”

He trails off, the same dazed smile hovering between ruddy cheeks. Charles doesn’t need to hear about how long it’s been since he had a proper bath. There’s been enough rag washes and tepid buckets between them in the past weeks.

“Sure,” he repeats, firmer. “You...go ahead. I’ll give it a couple minutes then- Y’know.”

“Okay,” Charles replies, barely a rumble, holding Arthur’s gaze for a moment, laden with something heavy. “Don’t be long.”

The door creaks shut behind him as he leaves, and for a second Arthur can only breathe, a strange fluttering in his stomach, like a skittering mouse has taken up residence amongst his insides. It darts around the space where his diaphragm rises and falls with each breath, dancing behind his lowest ribs. 

Alone, he turns back to the mirror. One hand rubs his face. His side still aches when he breathes overly deeply, a sharp splintering feeling in his ribs where an O’Driscoll bullet grazed him, supposedly. He has little memory of what caused the shallow scar, nor truthfully the welt within his breast and shoulder.

Whenever he tries to recollect, remember, reconcile some of the gaps in his head with the gaps in his flesh, the images fall away, like sand through fingers. His memory is a fluid, shifting thing, slipping from his grasp the harder he tries to hold on.

Perhaps it’s for the best. Perhaps his own mind is protecting him, shutting the worst of reality away behind barriers of blank space, of blurred images and falsehoods. But it doesn’t help the feeling of unsteadiness, the sensation he is losing his grip on something he never knew he had to hold onto in the first place.

The sense that some imposter returned from the brink of one cliff edge in the Heartlands is always with him. He is no longer the same. Sometimes he’s sure a ghost looks back at him in the mirror, that this not-Arthur has crudely fashioned limbs and eyes and an empty head from the septic bog he drowned in, devoid of certainty and direction. Devoid of faith. A puppet wears his face, walks in his boots. Inhabiting the discarded shell of what was.

Sloshing readily around that empty space is something far more domestic than the thoughts that plagued the old Arthur. The before-Arthur. It’s something he has always known to be true, and yet never given thought enough to know what to do with the knowledge. Arthur’s attraction to men has never been hidden from his own mind, just kept apart, placed high above the shelves marked ‘Dutch’ and ‘Robbing’ and the myriad dusty tomes mentally filed within his life’s library. It has its own pedestal - a beautiful, sculptural thing, always within sight and reach, yet far enough away to never risk damage, never come close to the mildew and mold that plagues the lower reaches.

Now, he feels it every day, indulges in something he had once thought would never _be_ felt, never be acknowledged, never tried or spoken of. A miraculous, soaring rush, of freedom, of honesty, a caged bird being able at last to fly, where before he had been satisfied with stretching his wings, hoping to feel the wind beneath them, and had believed that would be enough.

The feeling is new, frightening and wonderful in equal measure, and like the holes in the tapestry of his memory, and his body, it renders him unfamiliar with the man he is, or has become, as if the voice behind his thoughts belongs to someone he’s meeting for the first time, but recognises too. Maybe it’s like a dog feels upon meeting a wolf. They are not strangers, yet there are enough differences that both know the other is not quite _them_.

He still looks like himself. So he thinks. Still old and worn, a crooked nose from one too many breaks, yet somehow his thoughts are humming with some new energy, some purpose he didn’t have before.

Perhaps the man known as Arthur died in that prison. 

Perhaps he still lingers in the purgatory between life and death, dreaming septic nightmares of identity and self, of deer and double-barrels, never to wake up. Perhaps whatever made him himself before, made Arthur _Arthur_, was lost to the cellar under the shack, bones buried beneath the rotting floorboards, and the fact he feels both liberated and uncertain at once is because what’s left of his brain has long since dissolved into madness, oozed into jabbering feral nonexistence, coagulated with the piss and the whisky and the blood.

Perhaps there is no now. Perhaps he never left the cellar, and sleeps in a forgotten grave wherever Colm threw his unmourned corpse.

Arthur sighs. He rubs his face.

Outside the window, past the box of flowers, all that’s visible of Strawberry is a string of disembodied lights along the main thoroughfare, soft and yellow through the pane glass. Buildings are only distinguishable in silhouette against the late sky, dark gables and chimney stacks laid out on a wide canvas of fading light, stripes of remnant sunset in pale pink and lilac, like the lupines had been on the roadsides, imperceptibly intermixed with deepening blue, indigo clouds blossoming amongst the waking stars.

The past is far from here. It has no power as long as he refuses to feed it. The present is where he needs to be.

He crosses the room, and draws the heavy curtains.

Whoever he is, whoever has donned Arthur Morgan’s hat, rebuilt his struggling body and all its worries with it - he is free for one night; and as he lets his mind flick to Charles next door, waiting for him, anticipating _him_ \- it doesn’t much matter who he is, or whether he is the same man he was before. Charles knows. Charles sees past the costumes and conflict to whatever jumbled cluster of personality traits lurk tangled in his centre, those that are truly his, inextricably wound together like a matted ball of lint and fluff and various detritus, coughed up after it’s been through a cat.

Charles knows him, whoever that is. And Arthur feels peace with that; even if his stomach is still tying itself in knots.

He takes a breath. Sitting to take off his boots, he unbuttons his suspenders and shucks off his shirt, left wearing his tatty union suit and jeans. He wants to know Charles. Fill the present with Charles. Wants his certainty, his gentle respect, his unashamed affection. Wants to embrace the wondrous feeling of the truth upon the pedestal, and show himself sincerity, honesty. Allow himself to want. Soar.

He takes a moment to freshen up, and checks his shaved face in the mirror once more, deciding he looks as presentable as he will likely ever be, before slipping out onto the landing outside the bedroom, checking the coast is clear as he crosses to the room next door.

The door isn’t locked. Arthur raps his knuckles against it twice, and carefully peers within.

It’s a simple room when compared with the gaudy luxury of the downstairs, dark wood floors and plain walls, a stone fireplace built into the same chimney breast as the foyer below. Pans for heating water are set before a hearty fire, with towels hung over the grate to warm through, hearth crowded with various copper basins and filled jugs, a simple tray of toiletries on the mantel. In the centre is the bathtub, steam swirling through Arthur’s eyeline and obscuring the unmistakable masterpiece that is a naked Charles, standing between the bath and the far window.

Thankfully for the more reserved residents of Strawberry, the curtains are drawn.

Arthur slips past the door, and locks it behind him before he notices, freezing in place, the rising steam hardly helping his flush. Like they’re doing nothing more than exchanging greetings over breakfast, Charles smiles his bare, fleeting smile, effortless as ever, and Arthur feels very much like his knees will buckle.

“Hey,” Charles says, as if it’s the most normal situation in the world, as if he’s asking to borrow Arthur’s newspaper or commenting on the unseasonal weather, rather than singlehandedly conducting a full piece orchestra in Arthur’s head, robbing the breath from his lungs, constricting every valve and vein and artery to his heart until he’s sure there’s no blood left to power any sort of coherent thought.

“H-Hey,” Arthur breathes. “Uh- Hey.”

All he knows is he should have found Charles sooner. He should have turned the world over looking for him. He should have run to him, grabbed his hand, never ever looked back.

If he had known a man like Charles existed, shared the same earth as him, looked up at the same stars as him; perhaps it would have seemed a far more worthwhile life to live.

“You good?”

Arthur looks at him, finding his eyes through the fog of steam. “Yeah,” he manages, swallowing hard. His gaze tries to sink lower again, irresistible, and he clears his throat, feeling distinctly overdressed. “Yeah. Real bath, huh? Been a while since- Uh…I mean. Yes. Yeah.” He stares at the floor for a second, as if willing the beams of the ceiling below to break and send him crashing through to the downstairs foyer. “I’m good. Real good. You?”

Eyes fixed on him, Charles sidesteps the bath, approaching him with the dangerous grace of a crouching panther. “Better with company,” he says, impossibly low, smile turning into something richer, playful.

Arthur swallows again. As he moves, Charles reaches up and brushes out the thick weight of his hair, letting it fall loose around his shoulders in a black ink wash, sloshing water in Arthur’s abdomen, hot and heavy. He squeezes his bottom lip with his teeth, eyes sliding down Charles’ body like drizzling honey, the air in his chest sapped out of him with every inch of skin, every corded muscle, every place he wants to touch.

Looking at Charles naked is like a gut punch, like his knees have been kicked in from behind. It’s such an obscenely gorgeous sight that it feels like it really ought to be some kind of sin, some idolatry he needs to find the nearest priest and confess to.

Charles stands within reaching distance, looking appreciatively at the triangular patch of Arthur’s chest uncovered by the undone buttons of his union suit, but Arthur can't find his own hands to bridge the gap between them, ogling with shy eyes, heat quickly rising in his cheeks.

Charles is built more solid than a bison bull, tall and wide like an unencumbered pine. Heavy belly and broad chest like two wine casks stacked on top of each other, hips sweeping into the muscular swell of his generous thighs. Tough as hickory but with the beautiful patina of age and hard use, lined and scarred over much of his body, inlaid with mother-of-pearl stretch marks, curling around him like the rings of a tree. He’s as soft as he is strong, granite muscle beneath a layer of fat and sumptuous curves, power and finesse intertwined with gentility, care, unshakeable calm. And so strikingly handsome - a dark trail of hair leads down from his navel, into the V-shaped cradle of his hips, and Arthur doesn’t know where to look to cause the least amount of blood to throb in his ears. From his face to his chest to his legs; there’s no part of Charles that isn’t irresistible. 

His fingers clench by his sides. He breathes.

They’ve seen each other naked before. Plenty of times. It’s near impossible to live as they do without nakedness at some point or another. But this- This is something different. Not for laundry, when the only clothes they have are the ones on their backs, or for bathing in the lake, when the sun is hot and it’s been far too long since they washed with more than the barrel of water by the chuckwagon. This is just for each other, not for practicality or necessity. It’s intimate and private and like nothing Arthur has any reference for. Being able to admire the body before him, openly, and feeling a desire that was never present with the scant couple of naked women he has been in intimate situations with; there’s no burden of knowing he isn’t feeling what he’s meant to be feeling. There’s no fear, no vague unease. 

Only Charles. And he is perfect.

“Christ...” Arthur says, and his eyes flick from Charles’ face to his mouth, his heavy breast, the floor, the scarring on his cheek, glimpses he gets, scattered across his jawline like shards of glass. “You’re… Shit, Charles, you sure cut a figure, you’re killin’ me, I- You’re like...nothin’ I got words for, you’re-”

Leaning in, Charles gently cups his cheek with one hand, capturing Arthur’s words between his thumb and first finger, and kisses him, brief but ardent, feeling Arthur’s shaking exhale on his lips.

“I’m glad you’re with me,” he says, achingly soft against his mouth, and the last bastion of Arthur’s self-denial melts into nothing but a gooey sort of puddle somewhere in the vicinity of his toes.

Arthur meets his eyes, hesitating on the edge of action. There’s an unspoken anticipation between them, Charles’ naked belly brushing against his union suit, Arthur’s hands kept in halting fists by his own sides, fingers unable to open, even with Charles stroking his cheek, holding his chin. A trembling hope swirls with the steam in the small room, and it trills in Arthur’s stomach like the wings of a tiny hummingbird, restless, anxious, unable to settle despite the warmth and the comfort, the _longing_ he has for Charles.

“Me too,” he murmurs, and shuts his eyes with another unsteady breath, tight-lipped as Charles kisses him again, and again, the soothing hand on his cheek like temptation made flesh, asking for him to answer, encouraging him, more than he can bear.

Finally Arthur's eyes open again, blue and bashful, an inch from Charles’ own, black-brown and looking at him with the same intensity as he had months ago, with blood and bone spattered across his face, a poacher’s body sagging sidewards to the ground, shotgun cartridge having blown his head apart. He was glad then, that Charles was with him. Glad now, that they’re still alive to look back on it.

With a desperate sigh like a noise of pain, Arthur breathes his name, and all but falls into kissing him. Like a sailor who throws himself overboard for the song of a siren, he abandons the door behind him and presses forward, drowning every doubt that threatens him, caught in Charles’ waiting embrace. In an instant he is flush to Charles’ chest, head tilted, breathless, eager with the same wildfire as in the cave, needing touch, needing relief, just needing _something_ to soothe the edges of his flickering nerves. 

Charles hums his satisfaction, deep in his voice, wrapping him in his arms as Arthur buries his working fingers in his hair, raking his scalp, holding a silken tangle at the back of his head to keep him there, against him, keep them together. His left hand weakly fumbles for Charles’ hip and grasps at the handful of fat, the soft weight of his belly overhanging his thighs, and it’s like touching living marble, molten gold the surface of Charles’ skin, warm under his clumsy hand. Every inch of him is _perfect_, and Arthur can’t help the nagging worry that warns him he’s lacking in comparison, like a piece of sandpaper beside the finest silk.

Despite it, despite the rough edges to his kiss, his lack of practice, the feeble curling of his left hand into Charles’ hip, the way he accidentally knocks their knees together as he moves close, and then their teeth a moment later; Charles holds him like he can’t get enough, and smiles so obviously into Arthur’s lips that Arthur can barely feel his usual inadequacy, swallowed in Charles’ rumbling laughter, his hungry kisses, his eager hand unbuttoning Arthur’s union suit, the other aiming for his back, dipping past the fishtail buttons of his jeans.

He is wanted. Though his chest is gaunt, muscle wasted, devoured by a shotgun and then infection, scarred, beaten, tired, and furred in a brown layer of scruff all over like a particularly unattractive carpet, Charles _wants_ to touch him, wants to see him, pushing his hand past Arthur’s union suit as soon as the buttons are open across his abdomen, carefully stripping the fabric from his shoulders. Arms free, Arthur’s hips are brought forward, and his stomach jumps at the warmth of Charles’ bare skin against his, the intimate press of flesh at the front of his jeans, how Charles’ fingers rake over his chest hair and stroke every scar, paw at his pectoral, his biceps, his hips, effortlessly avoiding the bandages wrapped tight across his chest.

“There...was a moment,” Charles murmurs, before abandoning his words to kiss Arthur again, heavier now, harder, waiting for Arthur to attempt his own buttoned fly before he moves to help, undoing him as Arthur grips his wrist, wetly kissing his cheek. “In the cave- I wasn’t sure... If…”

Shoving his jeans to the floor, Arthur kicks out of them, and instantly presses into Charles’ hips once more, catching the sharp intake of breath against his lips as the cotton of his underwear rubs between Charles’ thighs. “If?” he manages, as Charles starts on the rest of the union suit buttons, unwrapping Arthur as though he’s a gift.

“If we would make it back,” he says simply, and catches Arthur’s eyes, holding his gaze as he edges his underwear down past his hips, Arthur toeing the crumpled fabric from his calves, finally naked in Charles’ arms.

He considers making a joke. The words present themselves, providing easy deflection, an exit clause for anything too big to feel. Maybe something about going soft in his old age. Maybe something about doubting, wondering if this is how Dutch feels when his well-laid plans go awry. He doesn’t voice them. There’s no need to.

“Yeah,” he replies, keenly aware of how close they are, how thrilling and terrifying it is to have nothing between them. No barriers, figurative or literal. His eyes flick from Charles’ to a point between his collarbones. “Me too. We been in some shit, but… When she charged, I…”

Charles leans down and kisses him again, softer, like a plea, and stays close when he breaks it. “I know,” he says, murmured as quiet as the drifting steam. 

Their foreheads rest together, and for a moment they just breathe, sharing the same space, chest to chest. Arthur shuts his eyes. Even with how often they’re forced to confront their own mortality on a regular basis, it’s frighteningly easy to forget how fragile existence is. And how grateful he is to have survived to a point where being with Charles so intimately is reality.

Careful, Charles straightens up. He takes Arthur’s hand in his, and steps back towards the bathtub. Arthur follows, quiet, watches him test the water temperature, sighing like a weight is pushing down on his chest, squeezing his voice like a low note played on bagpipes, long and plaintive. He shifts his balance from foot to foot. “Since meetin’ you… I ain’t never worried so much in all my life,” he says, frowning just enough that a singular line appears between his eyebrows. Charles looks up at him, dipping his free fingers in the bath water. “No wonder I’m goin’ grey. You made a fool outta me, you know that, right?”

“Just in general?”

“Mhm. I been made a right and proper damn fool since you went and...happened. Throwin’ my life all upside down. I weren’t never a fool before, not once. Never.”

“Well,” Charles says, satisfied with the water. “I can’t say it was hard.”

Arthur snickers, and treasures the smirk Charles gives him in reply, how his cheeks round with his smile. “I feel a fool around you too, if that helps,” he says gently, squeezing Arthur’s hand before he lets it go. 

Chuckling again, Arthur shrugs his good shoulder, rubs his chin. His eyeline falls, dropping to Charles’ backside. The silvery stretch marks on his thighs, the dip in his back before his ass. He shifts his weight. “Probably ain’t helping that we’re havin’ this conversation with our peckers out.”

Charles huffs, snorting a laugh as he leans across the bathtub, dipping one set of toes beneath the waterline. He gets in slowly, breath held as he sinks into the hot water, and Arthur feels flustered just watching how it laps around his stomach, caught by how the fire light is refracted below the liquid surface, blurring swathes of Charles’ skin in sparkling colour. With a deep exhale, he sits down, water shimmering in concentric circles to allow the curves of his thighs, his wide hips, the diamond shape of his back settling against one end of the tub, arms draped over the sides. 

“Maybe not,” he says, voice lilting, gesturing with his hand for Arthur to join him. He relaxes, tension rolling from his broad shoulders, his hair falling over the end of the porcelain bath in a draped black spray, hanging thick as hyacinth flowers, already starting to curl in the humidity, the water steaming like a hot spring. For a moment, he shuts his eyes, as content as Arthur has ever seen him, but opens one soon after, fixed on him. “But it makes for a nice view.”

The eye shuts again, creased up into Charles’ smirking cheekbone, and Arthur can only snicker, as always amazed at how easily Charles can reassure him, can erase every worry and self-conscious concern, acknowledge and soothe like his mere presence is the balm to Arthur’s rough corners, the firm fold to his fraying selvedge edge.

There’s no embarrassment with Charles. Even in the most potentially embarrassing situations. No reason to second guess.

With his right hand on the edge of the tub, and his left clasped in Charles’ offered palm, Arthur clambers into the bath with as much grace as an upturned tortoise, unbalanced and slipping on legs that refuse to hold his own weight, much less understand where his centre of balance is. He wobbles, and Charles’ free hand finds his hips before he can fall, carefully sharing the load as he sinks into the water, face clenched tight in pain. The water is startlingly hot, and he sits still as his skin acclimatises, smothered with the sudden temperature change.

Breathing hard, he finally settles, resting back against the expanse that is Charles’ chest, the water just shy of the bandage binding his shoulder. One of Charles’ arms wraps around his stomach, silently protective, the other hanging beside Arthur’s left over the edge of the bathtub, keeping his dressing well clear of the water.

“Good?”

Charles nuzzles the back of his head, stretching out his legs once Arthur is comfortable, snug between his thighs. The water carries his weight, a gentle pillow beneath them both.

“Mm,” Arthur hums, head on Charles’ shoulder. His right hand finds the one on his own stomach. He interlocks their fingers, relaxing as the pain of the awkward movement subsides into nothing but the sensation of heat, preoccupying his nerves. “Real good.”

“Not too hot?”

“Nah. S’Perfect.”

It must be nearing two months since he last had a hot bath. The parlour house in Rhodes has one, so he’s heard, but the few times Arthur’s visited hasn’t left him with much desire to hurry back. Not after the Fenton fiasco. And especially not for something trivial like hot water. Clemens Point is bordered on three sides by Flat Iron Lake; if he wants to wash, he can do so without the trip all the way back to antebellum.

Yet, he has to admit, sighing softly as Charles pours the contents of a fragrant pink bottle into the bath water, soap suds collecting in milky white drifts around them - there is something deeply comforting about a hot bath. The day’s stresses seem to melt into the warmth, aches disappearing with the swirling steam, until all that is left in his head is a pleasant sort of hum, a lazy buzz of base sensation, focused wholly on the heat, the scent of the oil in the water, and Charles’ solid chest behind him, his hands, his legs, his toes stroking rhythmically against one of Arthur’s ankles.

“Are you sore?” Charles asks, thumb rubbing where his hand rests beneath Arthur’s navel.

“No, surprisingly. It...feels fine. Like we ain’t spent the day riding and fist-fightin’ wild cats.”

“That was just you,” Charles says, voice fond, nose nuzzling at the nape of Arthur’s neck.

“Saved your ass though.”

Charles huffs, and Arthur smiles as he tips his head back, resting on Charles’ shoulder to look up at him. “Anyone ever fought a cougar for your affections?”

“Can’t say they have.”

“That’s the Arthur Morgan sweetheart special. ‘Will fight wild animals for you’.”

“Nice perk. What’s the catch?” Charles hums, eyes heavy-lidded as he smiles, eyelashes a thick black line.

“You gotta deal with me the rest of the time,” Arthur says. “When there ain’t wild animals to be licked.”

“Hm. Not seeing any downsides so far.”

Arthur chuckles, lopsided grin on his face as he looks at Charles from his shoulder, just able to reach up to meet his lips, stealing a lazy kiss. “S’cause you’re a fool,” he says, leaning into his mouth, and then quieter, “But I’m glad you are.”

With another huff of humour, Charles nuzzles his nose again, and kisses his head once Arthur rests it back on his collarbone, sighing a deep exhale. He shuts his eyes, content to enjoy the water, Charles’ hand curled around his stomach, thumb stroking where it can.

It’s hard to remember when he was last free of pain, now that he thinks about it, the usual static noise in his left side lulled by the heat of the water. Sometimes it seems more constant than even Charles is, lingering when he’s alone, persisting into the night. Nothing really _touches_ it, the pain in his shoulder so deep in the flesh that it feels like part of his skeleton, like something is mechanically wrong with the very structure of his body, in his bones, rather than just a surface wound, impossible to reach with any hand. It’s a permanent burden, only ebbing and flowing, rising and quieting, more than it ever truly leaves him.

Perhaps it was the previous week, when it had kept him awake into the early hours. Around two hours after midnight, he’d made the executive decision to drink an entire bottle of Navy rum and sit on the pier singing with Charles and Lenny. The latter was up way past his bedtime in Arthur’s opinion, but admittedly is well aware of what a night of drinking with Arthur might entail from past experience, so made a welcome addition to the party.

It had worked for the most part, treating the pain if not the insomnia, until Hosea had appeared somewhere around the song about Reilly’s daughter, fuming like a grizzly bear in a dressing gown, and threatened to castrate the three of them and throw the remnants to the lake pike if they didn’t go to bed.

He’d vomited much of the rum into Charles’ lap after that, too drunk to find the bucket and lacking the stomach of even the greenest Navy sailor. And he thinks Lenny must have left sometime after he’d started crying, mostly because he began telling them about Copper and how he used to love singing with him - even if he was a worse singer than Arthur and knew absolutely none of the words - but partly because he couldn’t pick up the rum bottle with his left hand, and what if he can never ride a horse properly again, or hunt with Charles’ bow, or hold his hand of his own free will; what’s the point of trying if it’s always going to be broken, if the others have to suffer for his nightly breakdowns, if Magpie can never ride with him again? Why does he have to keep going? Why didn’t Colm just kill him and get it over with-

It’s hard to remember. He doesn’t much want to. All that seems important is within the bath with him.

“Hey,” Charles says, voice quiet, breath in Arthur’s hair.

“Mm?”

“I could give you that massage. If you want.”

Arthur hums, a languid sort of sound, almost purring. He looks up at Charles from where his head drapes over his shoulder, admiring the line of his nose, the chiselled angle of his jawline, cracked with pale scars. “You spoil me somethin’ rotten,” he murmurs, and sits up, missing the warmth of Charles’ chest at once.

His hands, though, more than make up for the loss a moment later.

Charles sits firm behind him, palms smoothing over Arthur’s sides, fingers dipping into the slight indentation between each of his ribs, like a pianist strokes his ivory keys. His thumbs curl around his back, pressing up towards his spine, and Arthur groans out loud before the massage has truly started.

Arthur isn’t a small man, definitely not considered slight or even slim, but he always feels dwarfed compared to Charles. When his hands hold him, trace the lines of him, covet him, weight and size, he may as well be one of Charles’ carvings, an ornate, precious, _delicate_ thing, details teased from the space he takes up, pried from his skin. Every blemish and scar and mark is noticed by Charles’ careful fingers, and respected. Revered.

It isn’t that he feels _small_ when Charles’ hands are on him. Not exactly. More like the reassuring feeling of being wrapped in a large blanket, smothered in soft fabric so completely that no inch of him could ever feel cold; the feeling of listening to rain while safe in bed, tucked away from the world in warmth and peace. Charles’ touch is a deep, calming comfort, shared with him, pressed into his open palm like something secret. 

Frankly, it’s the most addictive drug Arthur’s ever come across. 

And not just comforting but _encouraging_, silently building him up, urging him to stand taller, a kind of liquid confidence that even whiskey pales in comparison to. He feels brave with Charles. Strong. Like the space he inhabits isn’t wasted but worthy, wanted, and deserving of affection. Not just a fist, or just a mean-looking face, or just a trigger finger; he’s someone special, someone human, with Charles. It’s a high unlike any he’s known.

He’s sure he could pluck stars from the sky with just Charles holding his hand, helping him reach.

With a sigh, low and satisfied, Arthur relaxes in place, completely enveloped in Charles’ hold. His mind seems to slow to a lazy rumble, focused only on how good it is to be touched.

“Have I ever told you…” he says, voice deep, like it’s lost somewhere in his chest, curled up and mumbling like a sleeping dog. “I _love_ your hands. Magic fuckin’ hands, you’ve got.”

A chuckle sounds behind him, Charles gently rubbing his back below the bandaging, taking in the wide muscles of his torso, narrowing sharply into his waist. “Glad to put them to good use,” Charles replies, so sultry it makes Arthur huff, exhaling hard like a boiling kettle, giddy smile bubbling around his mouth.

Fingers skirt his sides then, brushing the graze across his ribs. A bullet caught him, so he’s told, but the bruising there was deep too. Internal. Something else happened, a different injury, but Arthur doesn’t remember what it was, only noticing that the touch no longer elicits any pain, soothed by the warmth of the water where usually an unreachable ache would lurk. A kick? A punch? Maybe the butt of a gun, blunt and solid-

Who’s to know, now. It doesn’t matter. Nothing registers but Charles’ touch, indistinguishable from the soft lick and kiss of the water, fragrant heat lapping at the length of his body. Charles is close to his back, his thighs touching Arthur’s, spread to the sides of the bath to allow him to nestle between them as his hands pause, and surface from the waterline.

Silent, tight lips press to the back of his neck. Short enough that Arthur instantly predicts what’s coming, as if he can sense the apology that isn’t said aloud.

Careful fingers, wet from the water, find the safety pin holding the bandaging around Arthur’s chest. Charles hesitates there, feeling the slight tense of muscle under his fingertips, free hand tentative against Arthur’s side. Slow and measured, he squeezes the pin with his thumb, and lets it slip from the fabric, waiting for any protest, any request to stop what he’s doing.

None comes. Arthur sits noticeably still. He moves his arms to let Charles unwrap the bandage, over his pectoral muscles, beneath his armpits, up across his shoulder and around again.

“Don’t want it to get wet,” Charles murmurs, as if it’s his fault, as if he needs to apologise at all, breath close to Arthur’s nape. As he pulls the tail of the bandage away, his lips find the back of Arthur’s neck again, taking the gauze dressing pad from his shoulder while he kisses there, diverting at least a little attention from the prickle of air on the healing wound, the odd sensation of cold it brings once the packed fabric is pried away.

Only relaxing by a fraction, Arthur doesn’t see where the old bandage ends up. He doesn’t look down towards his shoulder, intent on ignoring it in favour of Charles’ soft lips, the wet silk of his tongue on the vertebra at the base of his neck. “I’ve got you,” Charles says, whispered into his skin, his palm spread across Arthur’s stomach like the protective wing of a mother bird, shielding his flesh with his own.

“Don’t like lookin’ at it,” Arthur mumbles, slumping in place, feeling the rhythmic rub of Charles’ fingers through the hair covering his belly, the kisses he presses to his back. In truth, Charles shares the sentiment, despite Arthur’s shoulder having healed a fair amount better than he’d dared hope. Than anyone would have hoped. It’s a mutilating reminder of a truly horrific injury, and even if it does heal completely - one day - it likely always will be.

A starburst crater covers the upper half of Arthur’s left pectoral, exploding beneath his collarbone in a spectacular, cavitating scar, the punctured hole still a good half-inch deep and several wide. The bruising has faded, the black of gunpowder long replaced by new, red flesh, skin attempting to cover the tattered edges, the burns and buckshot holes with its own bandaging, knitting the tissue back together as best it can. One thread at a time, from the bottom up.

It’s so much better than it could have been. The yellow of fat and strings of torn cartilage are no longer exposed within the wound like the innards of a gutted animal, and it no longer weeps, or oozes, or throbs with the hot stench of infection. It is so much _better_, more than either of them truly expected.

Yet it still exists. It is, and was, and always will be. And it’s the most agonising, devastating thing, not just physically, to Arthur most of all, but also to Charles, who feels it like the hole is in his own heart.

“Don’t look at it,” Charles replies, and shifts slightly to be able to touch Arthur’s full back, hands sweeping behind to stroke up his shoulder blades, over new and old scars, one distinctly pellet shaped beneath his scapula. Left of centre. “Shut your eyes,” he says, still apologetically soft, speaking words only Arthur is meant to hear. “Let me have you.”

Shoulders falling, the weary shrug of the mentally exhausted, Arthur sighs. Charles’ hands are expert, taking in the topography of his back with gentle, earnest admiration. He pushes and presses, thumbs starting to work at the knots of tension that cling in Arthur like limpets to a rock, prying at them to let go. And so respectful in every touch; Arthur is a magnificent artwork under his hands, and Charles an expert in the exact style of brush work that makes him so precious.

Humming at the feeling, Arthur’s eyes fall shut. He stretches his neck up, appreciative, like a dog having his ear tickled, Charles’ fingers digging into the muscles of his shoulder blades, thumbs smoothing carefully along his upper spine. “You got me,” he mumbles, letting his hands fall still in his lap, water swirling with the bath oil, steaming with pleasant scent. It’s hard to tell where the water ends and his body begins, the warmth making him feel molten. “All of me. Any which way, right?”

Charles chuckles, nothing more than a rumble in his chest, felt at the base of Arthur’s spine. “Don’t tempt me,” he breathes, and presses another kiss to the nape of Arthur’s neck, longer, tongue fleeting. “Night’s only just begun.”

With a questioning tilt to his head, Arthur huffs, cheek creeping into his voice as his hesitance finally starts to drift away, swirled into cloudy nothing like the bubbles in the water. “You got plans?”

“Maybe.”

Audibly smirking, Charles flattens his hands across Arthur’s shoulders, circling his thumbs deeper into the muscles that support his spine. “Not often I get you to myself like this.”

“True. Door’s got a lock. Mattress ain’t even straw or nothin’.”

“Then you see why I want to make the most of it.”

His tone slinks downwards, another delightfully deep rumble, voice thick from the steam or something else, Arthur can’t quite tell. But the insinuation picks his heart rate up from where it had sunk, once again aware of the intimacy of the situation, how ardently Charles massages his back, how every touch breaches territory no other hands have. And how thrilling it is to know Charles feels just as giddy as he does. Just as eager.

Even battered, bruised, torn apart as he was, he is still desirable to Charles. Still something Charles wants to touch, to kiss, to hold.

“Now you’re temptin’ me,” Arthur growls, and hears the huff of Charles’ chuckle behind him, floating and liquid as the water.

As Charles ekes the tension from his back, Arthur slowly begins to relax, letting his legs fall beneath the water surface, feet stretched out alongside Charles’. His head lolls, pleasantly heavy, cloudy with steam and the fragrance of the oil, the rhythm of Charles’ fingers, the tingling softness left behind by their press and push.

With his shoulders loose, he settles against Charles’ chest, enveloped in his arms as he turns his attention to Arthur’s lower back, fingers curling into the dough covering his hip bones while his thumbs work on the tight muscles of his lumbar spine. Arthur sighs, head tipped backwards, and rests his elbows on the edges of the bath to allow Charles the movement, feeling every fingertip dragging through his body hair, rubbing at the soft paunch below his navel, then around to the arch of his back, holding him between his palms.

As he relaxes, like putty in Charles’ large hands, Charles washes his chest with the scented oil, palm finding Arthur’s right breast and massaging a thin lather, swirled through dark hair from his sternum to the waterline. Though the touch is close to his uncovered shoulder, Arthur feels no hesitance or wariness, lost to how effortlessly Charles touches him, how _good_ it feels to have fingers so close to an open wound and yet trust them implicitly. 

Firmer now, Charles’ hands surround him. His weight is solid, moulding Arthur to his chest. Arms wrapped in a protective curl, he is almost as engulfing as the fire in the hearth, loosening every knot and burr of tension, of pain, prying at his flesh to soften, to melt in his hold.

And Arthur does, inch by inch. He buzzes, all over, pliant and stretched like pulling taffy, like potters’ clay in Charles’ hands. Feet reaching the far end of the tub, his toes curl in the water, and over his shoulder Charles can see Arthur’s fingers press and dig reflexively at his own skin, unable to stay away, squeezing at the swell of his thighs. Restless hands, always needing something to hold. Charles adores them.

“Feel good?” he breathes, balancing the weight of Arthur’s head on his own shoulder. The only reply at first is a voiced sigh, and he chuckles, massaging the last soap suds from Arthur’s chest, carefully tracing the latissimus muscles that pad his ribs.

“Mmm. Real good.”

Arthur hums. His toes curl again. Charles’ hand creeps higher. Experimental, he thumbs Arthur’s nipple.

Another low sigh, just a rumble of distant thunder. The water swishes around them, Arthur bringing his thighs together. From how responsive he is, Charles reckons few have ever touched Arthur with any kind of pleasure in mind. Touched just because it’s enjoyable, just to make him feel some sort of positive sensation about his own body. He’d wager it’s been a long time since Arthur felt good about any aspect of himself.

A travesty, frankly. But if Arthur will have him, Charles is more than willing to help change that.

“You’re beautiful,” Charles murmurs, lips on Arthur’s right shoulder. He kisses there, lingering, tongue and teeth in play.

A breathy laugh, and Arthur hums again, fingers fidgeting beneath the water, causing pink blotches to appear on his own thighs. “And you’re...a flatterer.”

“It’s the truth.”

Another long kiss, teeth catching Arthur’s skin, making him huff. “You are beautiful.” The skin flushes pink, and Charles soothes the mark with his tongue, still pawing at Arthur’s chest, thumb once again swiping his nipple. Arthur exhales hard, squirming in place against him, their feet tangled together at the end of the bath. “You are everything I think about.”

“Shit,” Arthur breathes, tipping his head back, neck arched. This clearly isn’t part of the same massage. “Goddamnit.”

Charles’ lips trail from his shoulder to the juncture between neck and collarbone, pressing heavy kisses in a long, searing line. He finds Arthur’s throat, able to feel his pulse spiking beneath the skin, skipping into an eager canter. “Damn _me_,” Arthur rasps, right hand again squeezing into his own thigh. “Ain’t- Makin’ it easy to...think respectable kinda thoughts.”

There’s a short chuckle from beside him, Charles biting another pink mark into his neck, hand groping the meat of his chest, pressing flush against Arthur’s back. “Then don’t,” he says, voice low, and his free hand drops beneath the waterline to cover Arthur’s own, squeezed gently atop his thigh. His fingertips drag through the coarse hair there. Arthur bites his own lip. “If it ain’t respectable to feel how I do for you. To..._want_ like I do for you-”

“Damnit, Charles,” Arthur breathes, thigh muscle clenching beneath their hands, fluttering like his racing heart.

“_Arthur_,” Charles says, soft like a sigh. Or a prayer. “I don’t care much for this world’s respect.”

A breathless chuckle and Arthur squirms again, hips rocking forward in the water, pink flush rising in his cheeks. “Don’t care much for my blood pressure neither,” he mumbles, feeling Charles’ laugh on the back of his neck. He worries his bottom lip, toes curling at the tub’s far end.

Their hands stay agonisingly still, so close to where he wants Charles’ touch, where he’s already halfway hard beneath the water. The heat of the bath seems to have pooled in his abdomen, fast drowning the majority of his rational thought, caught between the lit fire that is Charles and the intimate privacy of the bathroom, unable to do anything but boil over. There’s no thought spared for the clerk downstairs, nor the residents of the evening beyond their four walls; Arthur’s world is contained solely within the confines of the bathtub, thrumming with anticipation beneath Charles’ hands.

He _wants. _Whatever Charles will give him, no matter how new or overwhelming or vaguely terrifying it is. Charles is heavy, unfaltering against his back, earnest and yet never demanding, always waiting, listening, reading Arthur like he is written solely in his mother tongue.

Shifting just slightly, enough that Arthur can feel the evidence of Charles’ similar need pressed against the small of his back, Charles lets his other hand join the first, settling on Arthur’s left thigh, stroking down its length, fingers pressing at the trembling muscle, the hair on its inside.

“Tell me what you want,” he murmurs, too gentle to be a demand, briefly turning his head to nuzzle Arthur’s cheek from behind him, nose pressed to his shaven skin, the strands of his hair that cling to his face, damp from steam. “Whatever you need. I want to give it.”

The scent of the aftershave balm is herbal, medicinal but not at all unpleasant, leaving Arthur’s cheeks soft and smooth, only marked by the odd scar and blemish, freckles pricked around his nose like scattered leaves. He kisses a darker spot, and Arthur turns to meet him, noses touching, breath hot. His eyes are shut. “Let me take care of you.”

Arthur makes a deep noise, part groan and part sigh, braying his agitation to the bathroom like the cougar had to the cave, muscles taut and waiting, anticipating, draped back over Charles’ chest. “You got me,” he growls, lips curled against Charles’ cheek, eyes tightly shut as he shifts their joined hands, guiding Charles’ further beneath the water to finally touch his cock.

Another soft noise, unsteady in his voice as if snagged on clinging branches, caught in his throat before it’s given sound. Charles takes his length with a confident hand, fingers wrapped just firm enough that Arthur’s pulse throbs, jumping forward, Charles’ own appreciative growl sounding as he starts to stroke him. The water swirls, still hot, Charles’ skin impossibly soft from the oil in the water. It feels like he’s being wrapped in thick fleece from head to toe, draped in velvet, wet and warm.

“Shit,” Arthur breathes, thighs fidgeting as his toes curl, knees falling to touch the sides of the tub and bare himself completely to Charles’ palm.

Seemingly adept at everything he does, Charles truly is obscenely good with his hands. He continues the massage, albeit lower, free hand soothing the muscles of Arthur’s thigh as his other strokes his hardening cock, squeezing with just the right amount of pressure to make him hiss, thumb rubbing the tip, wrist twisting, tugging. If Arthur had any preferences before - which admittedly he didn’t, never having donated enough time or effort to something he could rarely be bothered to entertain in the first place - they mean nothing compared to this; the simple bliss of Charles’ hand on him, coaxing him upright, pulling strings Arthur didn’t even know he had.

It’s something about the situation, he supposes. Charles’ breath beside him, his size and weight against his back, the thickness of his arms, his braced thighs, the lax kisses he presses to Arthur’s shoulder and cheek when he pauses to twist his hand or grope lower, palm his balls. It’s intimate; more so than it was in the forest, with the leaves and twigs beneath their knees, the oak bark behind, jeans wrestled down just enough for access, and the camp beyond the far treeline, potentially permanent danger lurking within reach.

This is similar and yet different. More. More private, more comfortable. Closer, bolder, more assured. The territory is less frightening with familiarity, and yet even more thrilling with the knowledge that both of them want it, no conditions or questions, just each other.

And God but it feels good.

Arthur exhales, almost a laugh; God has nothing to do with it. It’s Charles. All Charles, endlessly Charles. The only heaven Arthur reckons he’ll ever see.

His name is groaned, and Charles smiles his bare smile into Arthur’s shoulder, nipping at the skin. He can feel every breath that Arthur takes, every shift of his hips, his ass flush between Charles’ legs, pushed back in an unconscious need for friction. The size of the tub is definitely not large enough to accommodate both of them lounging, Charles curled around Arthur from behind to reach. It’s cramped, somewhat clumsy, but it hardly matters compared to Arthur’s heavy breathing, the lax contentment on his face, how he lets his weight sink and sway with Charles’ hold on him.

The water sloshes with his hands, movement slowed beneath the surface, but Arthur doesn’t seem to mind, voicing his pleasure again, whispered to the humid air in a keening whine.

He’s hard quickly, and Charles doesn’t hide the fact he’s watching his own hand over Arthur’s shoulder, touching his cock beneath the water like he’s committing it to memory, mapping the weight and girth of him, the curve, the deep pink flush. His fingers are reverent, both hands used, urging Arthur to further spread his legs, twisting the tension in his gut like a corkscrew.

It isn’t hurried, like the woods had been. Languid, almost. Lazy with the hearth fire and the heady scent of the bath oil, content to enjoy the intimacy rather than grasp for a conclusion. Charles kisses the back of Arthur’s neck, tongue tasting the slight salt of sweat, sucking a bitten bruise at the same moment he squeezes with his hand, tight on his length.

Arthur swears. His breath is gasped, expression snatched as if he’s about to sob, heels pushing weakly at the tub floor. In his ear, Charles’ chuckle is like a growl, bass deep, coated in a thick varnish of the basest desire. “Christ,” Arthur manages, stomach muscles clenching.

“Good?” Charles asks, nothing more than a rumble, so low it makes the hairs on Arthur’s nape stand up.

“_Yes_. Shit, I- This ain’t...gonna last. Your goddamn _hands_.”

“I’d have my mouth on you if there was less risk of drowning. And more space.”

Arthur snorts, huffing a bright, breathy laugh. It trails off into an urgent groan as Charles twists his wrist around the head of his length, hips rocking forward to find more friction in the tight grip of his palm beneath the water, beg him to keep going. More touch. More movement. 

Just the thought of Charles’ mouth replacing his hand- It's almost possible to imagine, floating in the buoyant warmth, wet but soft, silky rhythm coaxing his cock, curling in his stomach. Almost easy to picture Charles between his legs, kissing his thighs, wrapping thick lips around his tip, murmuring those beautiful words of his, as ardently and simply as if reciting scripture.

Arthur’s breath skitters, groaning like it’s painful, and Charles suddenly stills his hand, squeezing very slightly at the base of his cock, rumbling his chuckle as Arthur snaps his hips against his unmoving arm. “Charles-” he hisses, belly in knots, hand flapping in frustration. “I can’t-”

“Breathe.”

Reluctantly, Arthur does, and the crest of the wave subsides enough that Charles starts stroking him again, mumbling low praise into Arthur’s shoulder, punctuated with kisses. “Good,” he says, nuzzling the skin, feeling his pulse thrash and throb. “I’ve got you.”

“Fuck...”

“I’ve got you.”

Part of Arthur wants to burst into tears. He makes a choked sort of noise, right hand grasping at the tub’s side, desperate for further sensation, something to tip him past the edge he’s tiptoeing. Charles’ easy praise might just be that. His knees knock into the edges of the tub.

Watching his own hand twist, grope Arthur’s length, Charles hums as he feels Arthur shiver, lips on his nape. His hips press forward, shifting in the water, slipping against Arthur’s ass. “Wish you knew how long I’ve wanted to touch you,” he says, purring, voice like a stalking panther’s snarl. It makes Arthur’s pulse jump. “How much I want for you.”

“_Charles…_”

“Arthur,” Charles says, and thumbs the tip of his cock, Arthur only able to groan and roll his hips in response, mouth open as his head falls back, cushioned on Charles’ shoulder.

Every nerve is alight. He squirms, aching for a rough, graceless ending that Charles won’t give, only used to snatched pleasure, hurried, meaningless. Charles by contrast is touching him like he’s tuning an instrument, stroking strings, tapping fingers, hoping to find the perfect resonance, the angle that will sing with the clearest sound. And Arthur is so unfamiliar with even the thought of being touched like that. Being pried lovingly open, stretched, softened, for the sensation to be prolonged and heightened, truly inescapably _felt_. It’s like he’s overflowing.

He makes another choked noise, sobbing on his own laboured breath, sure if Charles keeps finding unknown buttons to fiddle with, to stroke and caress and play with, his brain might just short-circuit out of existence.

Groping lower now, Charles takes the weight of his balls in his palm, and squeezes, playing with Arthur’s reactions, his grunts and groans, the cries he tries to hold back behind clenched teeth. “You’re doing well,” he murmurs, growling again, head turned to press kisses to Arthur’s temple, nuzzling his hairline. “Perfect.”

With a shivering sigh, Arthur can only sink further into the well he’s floating in. He’s captured top and bottom, engulfed completely in Charles’ hold, and the space in between Charles’ fingers feels like a formless puddle, melted chocolate coating a spoon. It’s like he’s drowning, lungs burning, striving for the rush of air as he breaks the surface. Desperate.

Another hum of praise, and Charles lets his fingers venture further between Arthur’s spread legs, free thumb on the tip of his cock as he brushes over his asshole with the other hand, able to feel the tense of muscle beneath his fingertip.

Arthur’s breath snags. Caught, ripping. Hips arched out from underneath him, he again grips the side of the bathtub, toes pushing at the tub floor. His expression slips, tumbling into another wrought sob, teeth clenched as if to bite the noise back, snarling his need for relief.

“_Shit_,” he snaps, voice fragile. Wobbling like an unsteady saucer.

“Has anyone ever touched here?” Charles asks, stroking over Arthur’s perineum with two fingers, his free hand moving up to splay across his heaving ribs, protective, appreciative of the weight of him, the softness of his belly as he chokes his breath in laboured gasps.

Eyes screwed shut, head tipped back on Charles’ shoulder, Arthur rolls it from side to side to answer. He takes a second to locate his voice, dragging it up from the depths of his insides, pleading for more contact. “N-Nah,” he manages, deep and worn. “Charles- _Please_...”

Charles seems to consider for a second, and Arthur’s still all but begging for more, clinging to the tub with his good hand, the left digging its nails in where it grasps Charles’ wrist. His stomach hitches, hips stuttering, Charles’ free hand squeezing the base of his cock, twisting up over the leaking tip while he circles Arthur’s asshole, presses the space behind his balls. So close, so near to the edge.

“Want me to?” he asks, a growl like velvet on sandpaper, rough and rich at once, thunder in a honey jar, and so close to Arthur’s temple he can feel it in his gut, lips hot on his skin, teeth bared in an animal expression of _need_. His fingertip presses, teases. Hand squeezing, steadying, a force holding back a flood.

“_Yes_,” Arthur sobs, frantic, crying sharply like a splintered twig. “Yes, _fuck-_”

His hips pitch forward, stomach like a fraying knot, strands ripping. The water splashes his chest, Charles’ hands a solid vice between his legs, tugging him over a cliff, deepest muscles twitching with the confident press of his finger, an inch outside of where he’s needed, a drop away from overflowing-

“I...” Arthur gasps again, heavy, and the expression of tight, desperate anticipation on his face seems to constrict like it’s been trodden on, eyes screwed shut and grappling to find the peak, breach the surface of the water.

It doesn’t come.

His brow furrows, mouth open to breathe or to cry or both at once, and hesitation rushes to fill the space before his climax, muscles jumping at how close he is to blessed relief, and how quickly it slips from him. “I don’t…”

There’s silence for an endless moment, poised in shivering tension. Arthur opens his eyes, blinking disjointed as his face falters, awareness and doubt and _thought_ jabbing rudely through the delicious haze of his arousal like a thousand lice have crawled into the pit of his stomach, skittering up his spine, cockroaches massing beneath floorboards.

Only their breathing fills the silence. For what feels like an age, Arthur freezes there, breath coming harsh through clenched teeth.

A moment more, an hour, a day, and Arthur recovers his own weight beneath him, sitting slightly more upright on his shuddering legs, water sloshing between them as he leans away. Charles removes his hand.

“I don’t know,” he admits, quiet.

His knees come up in front of his chest, thighs still shaking. He hunches, starkly opposite of a moment ago, spread out and arching, now crumpled over himself like scrunched-up paper, like he’s been punched in the gut, arms folding around his shins.

Charles speaks first. His voice is painfully soft, his belly still pressed to Arthur’s back, breathing hard. “That’s okay,” he says, leaning slightly to the side as if to see around his body, watching him pull a wet hand through his own hair, fingers jittery. He glances around the bathroom. As if looking for exits. Witnesses. How to get out. “It’s okay not to know.”

“I-I...thought- I thought about it. A li’l bit,” Arthur says, voice unsteady like it’s only just broken, pitching on an unsettled sea, listing from side to sickening side. Talking compulsively. Just to fill the ravenous quiet. “When I was...younger, I- Young. I guess. But I don’t…I ain’t got a lot of- And I don’t...know- Truly. Much about…”

Arthur frowns, tipping his head and staring up at the blank ceiling. What the fuck is he doing? The ceiling stares back, unhelpfully silent.

He aches, trembling, desperate for Charles’ hand, desperate to come, with his name on his lips, his arms around him. Yet somehow all the heat in his gut seems to seep from him as fast as it had appeared, like the tub has sprung a leak and clouded water is trickling out across the dark floorboards, soaking through to the gaudy chandelier in the room below. The ends of his nerves spark pathetically, skin buzzing, brightly depressing like paper garlands left out in the rain to fade and tear after a cancelled parade, a sad shivering anticlimax fizzling in the cold that’s left.

His shoulders fall, caved forward around his wasted chest. The points of his collarbones are stark and ugly beneath his flush, like the stalactites in the mountain cave, protruding above the grizzled mat that hides much of his body, tangled around old blemishes, blocked follicles, spattered freckles. It’s a pity it can’t cover the hole in his left breast, noticeably bald of hair like a forest scarred by a brush fire, like the great miserable swathes of Monto’s Rest, felled and emptied by logging.

“I mean, I never done nothin’ like- I don’t- It’s-It's been a...while, for me, y’know, with someone, and- I’unno if we-If it’d be...” Arthur trails off again. Hangs his head. The words don’t come. He snatches at them, needing to say _something_, but as usual, the right ones don’t present themselves.

In the still water below, his own face is reflected past the obscene swell of his stubborn erection, pale and swirling, a formless ghost wearing a costume of shame and skin. So close that one rough palm would have finished it, but every ounce of want and confidence and assurance in him is fast coagulating, left exposed, congealing in the cooling water like pond scum. He doesn’t know how to do any of this. His reflection wobbles.

“Fuck,” he snaps, and shifting his knees, he sends ripples through the watery face, looking away to the fire across the room, the one bright spot left.

“Arthur-”

“Y’know I used to figure I was born sick,” he says, terse and quick, and can almost see Charles’ expression cloud over behind him, can picture the taut bowstring of his brow, gathered in hurt tension. “Or broke, maybe. Like maybe my Pa’s sick head got passed to me too, y’know? Like he was so fucked up, he couldn't even make a son right.” 

He snaps a harsh chuckle. Moves his knees again, erasing his own reflection where it attempts to regroup in the still water. “Couldn’t make a son who...could bed a woman like a man should. Most basic fucking shit and I couldn’t- I couldn’t. S-So I… Grew up and figured I was never gonna get to be with...no one. Never. And I made do with that. Never...thought there’d be a feller who’d…”

A feller like Charles. A feller who makes him want to be better. A feller who makes him forget the hat he chose to wear, the man he chose to be, the life he chose to live, and cast it all away to be _better_, in every possible way. Makes him forget his pa and his cold cruelty, forget the women he’d failed to love, forget the specific amount of pressure needed to collapse a man’s airway in the crook of his elbow, forget the sound of nose cartilage crunching beneath his fist, forget hunger and fear and failure and anger and shame and replace everything he has ever known and been and regretted with the giddy joy of knowing _Charles_. Nothing but Charles. Live a life Charles would be proud of. Try to be someone worthy of him. To see the world as he sees it. He wants to smile, learn, explore, _grow_, just to be the kind of man Charles deserves.

Also a feller who makes him want to drop down on all fours and get rug burn on his knees, but that isn’t quite as poetic.

He sighs, sharp like a brandished knife. Both are true, and both he wants, it’s one of the very few things he’s sure of, but the entire idea that there could be a _relationship_ with another man in his future still seems ludicrous. Ridiculous to the point of self-sabotage. That there could be kisses, touching, intimacy, _sex_, is a fantasy he’d relegated to the deepest reaches of his mind, impossible to fulfil. 

To have that fantasy suddenly made flesh in front of him? To find himself admitting that he feels for Charles like he’s never felt anything, and wants to be _with_ him, not just as friends who can fool around as some kind of stress release, but something much more than that, much bigger. Something that isn’t as casual or simple or easy to detach himself from. And despite how wonderful it is, what an incredible incomparable feeling it is to have that kind of affection in his life, he truly has no point of reference for how to proceed. He's stumbling around in the dark, a newborn foal trying to find its legs, knowing he must stand, he must move with the herd or be left to the prairie, and once he does he’ll run and run and never want to stop, never feel trapped again; yet still he wobbles, pitches, forgets which of his four knock knees goes where, no matter how valiantly he tries. 

Being sure of his attachment to Charles is a fine thing, but when the rest of his life is turbulent at best, can he truly be sure of anything? Knowing that tomorrow everything might have changed. Knowing tomorrow might bring far worse than a cougar and a storm cellar, double barrels and buckshot, snow knee-deep and a dead girl on a ferry. At least loneliness is familiar. Predictable. This desperate longing is not.

He tips his head back. It rests again on Charles’ shoulder, and Charles nuzzles his cheek, silently reassuring as always, gently settling the hand that had just been touching him on Arthur’s right arm.

“I feel half-touched for you,” Arthur mumbles, eyes shut again. His eyelashes are fair in the firelight. “Ain’t just soft on you, I- Feel somethin’ awful. Things...a feller in our line of work shouldn’t be feelin’. And it’s crazy and new and I’unno if it’s right- Well, I don’t care if it’s right in truth, but I don’t know- If I’d be good for you, or maybe you wouldn’t want- Or…how to...” Frowning, Arthur scrunches his nose. He gestures with his right hand. “I mean I know..._y’know_. What bit you gotta stick it- Where to… _How_. Basics, like, o’course, I ain’t so thick as to not figure that much, I just- I mean…”

Another pause, and Arthur opens his eyes. What does he mean?

Careful, he sits up, and drawing his legs up tight to his chest, turns around to face Charles, being able to see him only slightly making up for the loss of his embrace, the warm weight of him behind him. He wraps his good arm around his knees, and sighs, curled over like he’s braced to be hit.

“I don’t know how none of this works,” he says quietly, voice tight. “Or what I’m doin’ or where I’m goin’ or what’s gonna happen, but damnit I _want_ you, Charles. Physical, emotional, any which way. I want it. I wanna be with you. Try’n make a go of it. I feel what I always figured I was never gonna feel. Not with no woman, at least, and it weren’t that I didn’t try, it just…”

Again he trails off for a moment, thoughts tangling with the heady steam between his ears, the scent of the bath oil, the proximity of Charles himself, sitting meekly across from him in a too-small tub surely wondering what on Earth happened to cause such a reaction, and why of all times Arthur’s chosen to talk about it now.

There’s still a dark flush down his chest, his hair slightly damp from the humidity, frayed in frizzing lines like fork lightning. And still so handsome; Arthur mourns keeping his hands to himself, even with his rising anxiety. Charles is who he wants. He knows that, at least, even if he doesn’t know how to reconcile that with anything else.

“I never felt nothin’ so bad. Figured nothin’ good was ever gonna happen to me in this life, but then there’s you and- You make me wanna prostrate myself on any level surface and damn the consequences, I swear-” 

Snickering, Charles can’t help but laugh, soft and smiling, as delicate as lace. Arthur blinks across at him, and only breathes when he’s sure Charles isn’t laughing _at_ him, instead just amused at his words.

His own smile follows, albeit hesitant, lopsided heavily as if unsure of itself, stumbling onto his face. “Sorry,” he murmurs, frown reappearing just as quickly, worn-in like old boots. “I ruined the moment. Empty head of mine just…won't shut its goddamn mouth sometimes.”

“You didn’t ruin anything,” Charles replies, so gentle it makes Arthur want to bite something.

He settles against his end of the tub with a steady grace, pulling his hair back from his face where the humidity has caught it, never uncomfortable with his own obvious nakedness - and arousal with it - simply reaching to touch Arthur’s wrist where it grips his own knees, stroking over the skin. His fingers are wrinkled from the water, soft as dew. “I want you to talk to me.”

“Never make no sense, s’just rambling nonsense. And at the worst possible time-”

“I don’t care,” Charles replies, eyes fixed on Arthur’s, catching them when they try to run. “I want to hear you. Always. No matter what’s on your mind.”

Swallowing the words he can’t quite keep hold of long enough to form a proper reply, Arthur looks glumly at the bath water. Very few people care to hear anything he says. Most of the time, even he doesn’t give his own voice any value. Why Charles should genuinely want to listen to the bullshit that comes out of his mouth is beyond Arthur. Yet listen he does. Always has. It’s still a wonder. Among many, with Charles.

“I’m not experienced either,” Charles says simply, voice low and still, not quite blank but- unembellished, sincere in the same way as new linen or cotton. Raw. Honest. “There were a couple of men,” he admits, “When I was young, looking for connection. Nothing meaningful. Nothing in a long time.”

Arthur swallows. Across from him, Charles looks charmingly huge for the bathtub, water barely covering his cramped knees as he tries to sit comfortably against its end. It’d probably be amusing if he didn’t make it look somehow effortless. If anything he did was a fraction less gorgeous than it always is. Distracted, Arthur glances at the water running down his chest, the milky soap suds that lap at his belly. The hand on his wrist is the only thing keeping him still, fingers restless, agitated like wasps that have woken too soon before summer. 

“I don’t know what will happen, between us or otherwise. But I know I want to find out with you.” Silent, Charles thumbs over the back of his hand, unable to find Arthur’s eyes again. He leans forward, water sloshing weakly around them. His voice falls lower. “Arthur, look at me.”

Brow creased, Arthur does, expression flickering, grappling with itself. Shame, frustration. “There is no part of this I want to change. Uncertain future, lukewarm bath water, cougar-related aches-”

“Blue balls?”

Charles snorts, sudden chuckle echoing in the sparse room. His free smile is like the rising sun, like an oil flame springing up from a soaked wick, and Arthur finds himself unable to help his own wan copy, mouth acting on its own to join in. “Doesn’t bother me,” Charles replies, fond. As sincere as ever, each word weighty and considered, placed perfectly. “Whatever we do is yours to control. We’ll find out how this works together. At your pace. You tell me what you want, whatever it is.”

The tips of his ears feel hot as he flushes, and Arthur again finds himself glancing at the breadth of Charles’ chest, the swell of his biceps, the ardent insistence in his expression. He’s not sure that ‘everything’ would be a helpful answer to that request, but at the moment it’s all his brain can provide. All of him. Everything Charles is and will be. Arthur wants that. 

Finding his gaze again, Charles’ brow creases. For just a moment, concern tugs sharply in his face, and his voice slips another few feet downward like it's fallen down a flight of stairs around his ribs, rumbling deep in his chest. “I want you to feel good, always,” he murmurs, eyes like clasped hands, doe-like in their dark intensity. “And not like feeling strong for someone is…being ‘born sick’.”

“I know it ain’t,” Arthur says quietly, shrugging his right shoulder, head shaking. “Been livin’ with it long enough to make some kinda peace with it. Just...never thought I’d...find a feller like you. That actually feels… Y’know. Wants to...try.”

“Me neither,” Charles says, stroking Arthur’s wrist for a moment more, gently tracing the scratches on his forearm.

The skin is pink and slightly raised, split in shallow grazes, but it barely resembles the work of a cougar at all. No one would know except them.

“I want to try,” Charles murmurs, reverent as he thumbs the freckles and scars of the back of Arthur’s hand too, his calloused knuckles, pink beneath his touch. “And incidentally, the feeling is mutual. The ‘prostrate on a level surface’ feeling.”

This time Arthur chuckles, voice a little stronger, easier. His grin resurfaces with the blush in his cheeks, shooing away the self-conscious downturn in his expression, and he’s finally able to meet Charles’ eyes for longer than a second. Ruining moments is clearly a talent of his. But Charles never seems to mind, never impatient or frustrated, always softening anything sharp, preventing Arthur’s seams from ripping any further.

Not for the first time, he wonders what great kindness he did in a previous life, to find Charles in this one.

“I’m sorry,” he says again, glancing up at him. He lets his knees fall apart, no longer drawn up to his chest like a barricade. “Shit. That was real nice, bein’ with you, and then I just- Well. Ain’t a conversation to be havin’ in the tub with our pricks out. Again.”

“Don’t mind. You’ve got a nice prick.”

Snorting suddenly, Arthur laughs, loud and clumsy. Startled into flight like a flock of birds. Watching him, Charles’ mouth tweaks at the corner. “I’ve gotten stranger compliments,” Arthur says, bubbly with laughter. “Though if this water gets much colder there won’t be nothin’ left of it to admire.”

This time Charles snorts, lips trying to stay tight around his laughter. “In that case,” he says, and carefully finds his feet, holding the side to climb out of the tub. Naked and dripping, he fetches a towel from the rack in front of the fire, the cotton warm and surprisingly soft. Softer than any towel they’d see back at camp. “I better take you to bed.”

With another chuckle, Arthur watches as Charles holds the towel open beside the bath, ready to assist him in getting out. Which is easier said than done.

It takes a few moments of manoeuvring, remembering which leg is which and where it needs to be in order to bear his weight, able hand gripping the edge of the tub while the other weakly holds Charles for balance, but Arthur is soon wrapped in the towel and standing on his own, grateful for the fire’s warmth when the air hits his skin, cold compared to the fading heat of the water. And each other.

They collect their discarded clothes in crumpled bundles, and together brave the world outside the bathroom, creeping back to the room next door in silent single file once it’s certain the coast is clear.

Charles momentarily spares a thought for the maid and her optimistic offer of help should Arthur need it while bathing, and her likely disappointment when she has to empty the cold water alone later on, unaware that Arthur enjoyed his bath with another instead. 

Admittedly, the thought doesn't bother him too much. He locks the bedroom door behind them both.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> we're getting there folks! i think(?) there'll be seven chapters to this behemoth in all. i'm still working my way through and editing the last bits. thank you so much as always for bearing with me and for your wonderful comments. i've had some scary medical news in my family this past week, so it's very much a 'one step at a time' operation rn and i'm sorry it'll likely mean i'll still be slow as all hell in the future, but i really hope you're all safe and you enjoy the scraps i'm throwing out :')
> 
> a special thanks this time to some pals: charlotte and loom, who have always been and are still so vocal in their support for this nonsense of a fic series, which absolutely means the world to me, and never fail to encourage me to keep going whenever i think it'd be better to give up. plus gis, bdale, and scrambled, who also enable my completely tiresome rambling about arthur's psyche and sex life and mental health, and a whole load of other video game bs. y'all help me feel a little less alone on this bitch of an earth. i love all of you very dearly ok ♥


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “You...haven’t done this before?” Charles asks, dragging his voice into an audible register, stroking down Arthur’s thighs.  
“Ain’t it obvious?”  
“I try not to assume.”

_ I will leave all and come and make the hymns of you,  
None has understood you, but I understand you,  
None has done justice to you, you have not done justice to yourself,  
None but has found you imperfect, I only find no imperfection in you,  
None but would subordinate you, I only am he who will never  
consent to subordinate you,  
I only am he who places over you no master, owner, better, God,  
beyond what waits intrinsically in yourself._

  


Arthur throws the bundle of his clothes across the chair beside the washstand as soon as they enter, ignoring the fact they fall to the floor a second later, heavy jeans tumbling in a heap with his underwear. Towel held loosely around his waist with his weaker hand, he pads barefoot around the bed to a square side table, squashed between the bedstead and the wall, and inspects the lamp upon it, flame low and struggling having devoured much of its paraffin-soaked wick, light scattered upon the wall and curtains behind. He twists the frontal dial, mechanically raising the wick, and the room instantly brightens, more so when Charles does the same for the lamp on the opposite side.

Bathed in warm, fluid white, a jug of water is set out on the same table, and Arthur peers into it before drinking straight from it, only looking up to find Charles watching him when he’s finished. He gestures at the jug of water, and holds it out for him to take when Charles nods. Charles drinks, and sets it down beside the lamp.

“Feel better?” Charles asks, still watching him, voice low. Collecting his own towel in one hand, he lets it fall from his hips and dries over his stomach, rubbing both arms, across his chest, squeezing the ends of his hair.

Staring, Arthur breathes. His eyes drip down the length of Charles’ naked thighs. He licks the water from his own lips. “Much,” he replies, and clears his throat, forcing his voice past the distinct urge to groan. With the back of his hand, he wipes his mouth. “Like I ain’t...skinny and beat-up and well past my prime. If I ever had a prime.”

Ignoring Charles’ chastising glance, he moves back around the bed, hands still clutching his towel. An impression of nonchalance. “Barely feel the usual aches. You should start chargin’ for the pleasure. Side hustle! You got a gift.”

“I like taking care of you,” Charles says simply, as if that explains his ceaseless kindness, his patience, his _everything_, the most monumental affection and understanding Arthur has ever experienced with another human being.

Charles makes it sound like something anyone could do, like something Arthur should have been familiar with long before they met, surely well-versed in the kindness and comfort of strangers, with plenty of friends and lovers and the experience thereof. He had said that Arthur had no idea how much he meant to him, before, and Arthur is sure that’s true, but the reverse is equally so; Charles has no idea how extraordinary he is, and how big an impact his presence has had on Arthur’s life. He is a lodestone. Drawing out parts of Arthur that have been buried. He strips his layers back, one chip of ancient flaking paint at a time, and urges something forgotten to resurface and see the light of day; digs shards of him out like splinters from a skin-sealed wound, fragments of identity long lost to neglect and the gaudy patina of Dutch’s branded colours. There is something brave in Arthur, when Charles looks at him. Something small and never nurtured, that Charles can see and know and _reach_, as easily as reaching for his hand, when Arthur had been certain no hope of goodness remained in him. Or if it ever existed at all.

For a moment, Arthur can only stand still, holding up his towel, droplets of water running through the hair on his legs, dripping past his ankles to the brightly-patterned rug beneath his feet. Charles finishes drying the ends of his hair, the wet making black even blacker than usual, and meets Arthur’s gaze, naked in expression as well as in body. His eyes are liquid.

“Ain’t easy work,” Arthur says quietly. Reluctant, that he’s still compelled to provide an out. An escape route. “Pretty rotten, truth told.”

“Not to me.”

Again Arthur is silent, unable to conjure any words that could possibly explain what he feels, the mess of gratitude and guilt, affection, attraction, disbelief, desperation. He’s never been much good at speeches. Perhaps if he felt less, cared less, he’d be able to find words to put to his thoughts. Mundane words. Everyday words.

They could have died today. He could have died all those weeks ago. They could both die tomorrow. There isn’t a language infinite enough for the depth of feeling in him.

It doesn’t matter. He has always been better at action than words.

“Goddamnit,” he snaps, and stumbles forward, crashing into Charles’ chest and kissing him once again, clumsy and hard.

His right hand gropes for the back of his head, tangled in a handful of damp hair to keep them together, Charles on his back foot to balance, breath hitching as Arthur’s towel falls forgotten to the floor. His own follows a second later.

Pressing forward, Charles responds, both arms wrapped thick and protective around Arthur’s back, hands mapping his lower spine, the swell of his ass, again inhaling sharply when Arthur’s hips meet his, canted up, hair on his belly still wet from the bath.

“What was that about-” Charles’ voice trips and becomes a groan, kissing back at Arthur’s mouth, pressing himself flush against his chest, rubbing into the damp friction of his belly hair. “Mm- Blue balls,” he says, before Arthur’s tongue is on his in a dizzying slide, dominant hand gripping the back of his neck, snorting in place of a laugh.

The kiss settles into an inevitable rhythm, rocking and relocking, snatched between the grab of Arthur’s hand and his insistent lips. Slowing is impossible, too much unresolved between them both, all the lazy heat of the bath left to drain with the cooling water and uneasy feeling, replaced by a roar of hearth fire, like fanned flames whipped up from ashes.

For all the times they seem to end up in very similar situations, kissing Charles hasn’t yet lost its thrill. Arthur hopes it never does, for as long as he is allowed to do it. He can’t help himself, drawn like a man dying of thirst is to a spectral oasis, a mirage in the heat haze, unable to slow down enough to blink the trick of light away.

His hand is solid in Charles’ hair, ends still wet, curled about Arthur’s fingers in a chaotic bun as he holds his head, bringing him down the couple of inches to meet Arthur’s shorter height. It’s a matter of half a hand, but still Arthur teeters on his toes to try to press closer, to bring their hips together, hungry for the touch they’d left next door when his anxiety got the better of him. His back is arched like a bent nail, legs parted to slot Charles’ thigh in between and grind against it, gasping into their kiss.

Thinking the same thought, Charles’ hand slips down the back of Arthur’s damp thigh, urging him to lift his leg, gripping the thick muscle, the other hand still on his backside. He pauses, a moment’s deliberation, and then lifts Arthur off the floor.

“Hey- _Shit-_” Arthur makes a noise somewhere between a grunt and a squeal, mid-kiss mouth falling over itself as he realises what’s happening. Barely tensing at all, Charles simply supports his weight against his chest, letting Arthur wrap his thighs around his waist, carrying him easily, as if he isn’t a grown man of fairly considerable weight and height. 

“Okay, now you’re just showin’ off.”

“I resent that implication,” Charles says, smirking just enough that it’s obvious he doesn’t.

“I _resent_ bein’ hauled about in your ridiculous arms like this is some kinda penny romance novel and I’m the damn _damsel_,” Arthur says, scowling, nose scrunched, trying to wriggle away from Charles’ far-too-tempting smirk.

“Thought you liked my arms.”

“They’re…gratuitous.”

“Well that’s a big word for ‘attractive’.”

“It _means_ un-fuckin’-necessary.”

“Like your pouting?”

Mouthing absently at his chin in loose kisses, Charles’ amusement rings like a dropped coin on a table. His shoulders shake as he stifles his laughter.

“Your arms are a _danger_ to- Quit kissin’ me, I’m airin’ a grievance!”

Charles ignores him.

“-A danger to any warm-blooded old fool what might see ‘em, let alone find himself bundled into ‘em like a goddamn sack of flour. What you even so strong for, huh? What business you got bein’ so goddamn large?”

Ignoring how his breath stumbles, Charles still intent on giggling into his jawline, Arthur flaps his hand at the bicep currently flexed around his hips, curved and smooth like a melon in a pair of stockings, tensed and perfect and thick as day-old oatmeal. Obscenely handsome, frankly.

With a stare that makes Arthur’s throat dry, Charles eyes him, and lets his voice slink some few thousand miles further west, impersonating the sandpaper twang of Arthur’s accent, lips on the scar on his chin. “‘_How’s a feller not s’posed to jump you_’, you said.”

“Yeah well I resent that’n all,” Arthur snaps, melodramatic pout hardly hiding the kiss-bitten shine of his lips, the rosy pink of his cheeks. He can sulk to put a toddler to shame. “Gonna give me heart failure, amount of blood keeps rushin’ south of the Mississippi just from lookin’ at you, you great gorgeous bastard. Loving you oughta come with a health’n welfare warnin’, ‘cause I clearly had no clue what I was gettin’ int-”

Charles pulls away. For a moment - long enough that Arthur stops talking - he simply stares up at him, eyes suddenly round. Wide-set and soft, fixed on his.

“What?”

The expression collapses from Arthur’s face like a parade of books from a shelf. Realisation of his word choice sparks a sudden fear in him, dragging his jaw down, his eyes wide, sure he's crossed some kind of invisible line. “I- I meant. Carin’ real strong for- You… I didn’t- Forget it, I’m just talkin’ out my- Ah.” Eyebrows knotted in a brittle frown, he wrinkles his nose. 

“Didn’t mean nothin’ by it,” he says, quieter, gaze settling on some abstract point on the floor to his left. The flush that had already been creeping over his chest, up his neck, across his cheeks, flourishes in his skin with a vengeance, colouring the tips of his ears. “Y’know what I mean.”

Gentle, Charles just adjusts his hold on him, presses one hand to the small of Arthur’s back, rubbing there. He leans in and up, lets their lips brush, the ghost of a kiss, making Arthur’s eyelashes flutter, untangling the frayed threads of his brow. Only when he can see the flecks of silver green in Arthur’s eyes, chipped amongst the blue like inlaid jewels, like tiny shells glimpsed on the seabed from the surface of the ocean, does he smile, and feel Arthur relax in his arms. “I know,” he murmurs, close enough that Arthur nuzzles against his nose. “Lucky I’m fluent in you talking out your ass.”

Audibly swallowing, Arthur just nods, mouth drawn up in a bashful half-smile. “I don’t believe there’s anythin’ on this Earth you ain’t good at, Mister Smith,” he says, with a clumsy little laugh, fragile like the wing bones of a songbird.

“So stop pouting and kiss me,” Charles says, and then, fond, “You warm-blooded old fool.”

Lips parted, foreheads together, Arthur breathes like he’s forgotten how, eyes barely open. As Charles’ nose touches his, he allows himself another bolder chuckle, relief more than anything else, wrapping his arm around his neck and sinking into a new kiss with just as much urgency as before.

It’s jostled into the background with the fluid lamplight, the gaudy wallpaper, the creaking wood floor, but the comment isn’t ignored. Heard, but not given a spotlight, lest it once again derail the evening into something Arthur struggles to talk about, some conversation of deep meaning and feeling and honesty that is best had fully-clothed. Or partly, at least. He wouldn’t shy away from such things if they were pressing, but he’s certain he’s done enough talking for one night, and there are matters far _more_ pressing that are easier to settle, in his opinion. Not limited to how Charles’ hand gropes at his ass cheek.

Carrying him still, Charles walks the few steps to the washstand, hand disappearing from Arthur’s thigh to rifle blindly through the lotions and oils around the basin, sending several bottles clattering over. A towel appears too, briefly brushing against Arthur’s bare back as Charles throws it optimistically towards the bed. Arthur doesn’t see where it lands. He doesn’t much care. All he can feel is Charles, all he wants to know is Charles. Properly. No interruptions this time.

The scent of the bath oil lingers on his skin, delicate and floral, still slightly damp in places, tacky with warmth against his bare thighs. Again Arthur rakes his hand through his hair, guiding the kiss, fingernails blunt on his scalp. His hips are pressed to Charles’ chest, legs around his waist, and he only notices they’ve moved when he’s jolted as Charles sits down, knocking them closer together for a second’s spark of friction.

Large hands settle his weight, and Arthur exhales, shaky, seated in Charles’ lap. He has sat on the edge of the bed with Arthur straddling his thighs, knees touching the mattress as he sinks down, resting heavy on his legs. Arthur’s arm falling from around his neck, Charles leans back to look at him, admiring the flush of his skin down his chest, pink beneath the dark fuzz of his body hair. One hand strokes Arthur’s thigh, mapping the flexed muscle between his thumb and little finger, the other squeezing gently at the soft layer of fat covering his other hip.

Gaze flicking back up to Arthur’s eyes, he opens his mouth to speak, lips slow, wet from the kiss. “You’re beautiful,” Arthur says, instead, and Charles blinks, as if wondering how his intended words came from Arthur’s mouth and not his own. “Only fair I say it back,” he continues, voice low and quiet, intimate, the brush of fabric on bare skin. “Since it’s true. Truer’n it’d ever be for me. Look at you, you’re…”

He sighs, a hushed breath, and his eyes glide down the canvas of Charles’ face. His wide nose, split eyebrow, lips slightly parted in the softest impression of a smile. Chest like the bole of a tree. “Beautiful,” he murmurs, and hardly even notices the pang of embarrassment it brings, a defensive reflex he pays no attention to.

Huffing, Charles smiles, brighter. “As are you,” he says, voice humming, leaning in closer, careful. Hand between Arthur’s shoulder blades, he lets their noses touch, eyes half-closed as if studying the planes of Arthur’s chin, the diffusion between lip and skin, blurred by the gentlest brush. Clean shaven is a striking look on him; angular and refined, yet also somehow younger, the lack of stubble and scruff providing no familiar shabbiness to disguise his face. Naked in more ways than one.

Arthur closes the gap to kiss him again, readjusting his weight in Charles’ lap, thighs sticking to those beneath them with the tacky friction of freshly-bathed skin. His hand gropes the muscles of Charles’ neck and shoulders, strokes his cheek as he kisses him, head tilted to clumsily meet Charles’ tongue. Unable to resist touching him.

He rises on his knees, pressing forward, and rather than lean up to meet him, Charles lets his kiss drop from Arthur’s lips to his chin, kissing each and every scar he can find in the light from the twin oil lamps, nipping beneath his jawline, taking advantage of the shaved skin, used to the sharp bristles of a beard.

Breathing deep, Arthur holds his neck, inching further up Charles’ thighs. His head tips back. Charles kisses his throat, sucking the skin, Arthur’s pulse like a drumbeat through his carotid artery, fingers trailing down the length of his back, stroking over every rib. As he had in the bath, he instinctively seems to miss the solitary exit wound beneath his shoulder blade, the bullet graze cut across his side, and Arthur can’t even remember they exist in order to be wary, so completely confident in Charles’ hands that he can enjoy every touch, every new sensation, every tugging ache in the pit of his abdomen. He can be lost, and know he is safe just to feel, arching backward to lean into his hands, like a cat might curl into a pleasant scratch, all but purring.

As Charles’ hands linger, wallowing in the triangle of muscle in the small of Arthur’s back, Arthur counterbalances by pressing his hips forward, rocking into Charles’ cock, and both of them hiss.

It’s a beautiful sound in Charles’ voice. Curious, Arthur wonders what other sounds he can discover. With his left hand, fingers curled weakly into his palm, he experimentally brushes Charles’ nipple, as if nervous he’ll be told to stop. Charles’ breath skips, a stuttered gasp. 

“You like that too?” he asks, barely audible. 

“Mhm,” Charles hums, prying another kiss from him. 

“Felt nice when...you done it for me.”

The backs of Arthur’s fingers move up the curve of his pectoral muscle, a weak and meagre motion, knuckles just able to touch and knock into him, rub over his nipple, making Charles hum again. Pushing past the pain in his shoulder has his fingers trembling, the strain of extending his arm at all - even just to reach a few inches forward - throbbing heavy in his bicep, spreading out into his chest. Despite the massage, the warmth melting through his aching body, the day is taking its toll as it winds to a close, rudely reminding him of his pain whenever he starts to forget its presence and relax, woven into all of him like underlay, like his foundations themselves are crying out.

Teeth clenched, Arthur can’t maintain the position for more than a few moments, and eventually brings his hand away back to his side, instead simply kissing him while he disentangles his right arm from around Charles’ shoulders. Weight braced across Charles’ thighs, he lets his working hand fall down his chest instead, admiring the scarred, flawless breadth of him, the thickness of his torso, his heavy chest, round belly, all of it felt and savoured beneath able fingers.

Arthur’s hand trails as if touching glass, mapping the bulge of Charles’ gut, the translucent striation of stippled stretch marks, feeling his weight and the strength behind it, how his thigh muscles tighten in response to every touch. Tipping his head back, hair falling down around his shoulders, Charles simply looks up at him, wet lips parted, just breathing. He lets his own hands fall, following the swell of Arthur’s ass, nestled so neatly in his lap, and Arthur again adjusts his position, hips scooting forward to press Charles’ hardening length against his thigh, a hot and firm weight. Even his cock is gorgeous. Thick like the rest of him, dark and flushed, and Arthur’s sure he’s never felt such a desperate desire to _touch_ in all his life.

He hadn’t asked, in the woods outside Clemens Point. It was all such a rush that neither of them lingered enough on words. But he wants to now. The same trust he places in Charles must be easy for Charles to return.

“Can… Can I touch?” He curls his fingers. “Your… You?”

“‘Course.”

Momentarily pulling back, he spits into his own palm, and Charles is so engrossed in watching him that he doesn’t even comment on the crudeness of it, looking up through his eyelashes, fingers in the divots where Arthur’s back muscles become his ass.

Palm wet, Arthur gently takes his cock, cautious at first, watching Charles’ face as he folds his fingers carefully around his length. His thumb swipes across the tip, and he starts to stroke, shallow and slow. It still feels new, potentially dangerous, potentially embarrassing that he’ll do something wrong, but Charles’ words from before are fresh in his mind. He wants Arthur to feel good about whatever they do. And despite the many protests clamouring in Arthur’s head, he knows Charles always speaks sincerely. His expression suggests he’s enjoying it too.

Leaning in, Arthur kisses the corner of his lax mouth, deep pleasure oozing heavy in every facial feature. “Is...is this okay?” he asks, mumbling, hand paused as dark eyes open, pupils constricting just slightly to meet the low light, and Charles looks up at him like he’s witnessing some kind of earthly miracle, dazed. “I ain’t sure what...how you- I never done this except that time in the woods, so… Tell me if it ain’t good for you, alright?”

“_Arthur_,” Charles says, voice almost slurred with how slow it comes, leaning up to kiss his lips.

His hand moves to cover Arthur’s own, encouraging him to keep going. Faster. “I’ll tell you. It’s more than okay.”

“Right,” Arthur says, and nods his head. “Good.”

Glancing down to watch his hand, Arthur drops his kisses to Charles’ jaw, feeling his head tip back, his content sigh as his movement starts again. Lazy, he kisses the cut angle of Charles’ jawline, tracing the scarring across the right side, stark like gouache detail on a richly coloured canvas, white fault lines in the earth. He’ll have to ask where they came from, one day.

As he trails down Charles’ neck, letting his lips drag and press feather-light across the width of his clavicle and then back to his throat, he strokes Charles’ cock, achingly gentle, just trying to get it right, encouraging him back to hardness, fascinated by the swell and firm of flesh beneath his hand. His fingers graze the thatch of hair beneath Charles’ belly, exploratory, tugging him upright, twisting his wrist as Charles had for him, to see if he gets the same reaction, enjoy the momentary flicker in his breathing.

“You...haven’t done this before?” Charles asks, dragging his voice into an audible register, stroking down Arthur’s thighs.

“Ain’t it obvious?”

“I try not to assume.”

Huffing, Arthur buries his chuckle in the spot behind Charles’ jawbone, where his mandible angles up into his ear, sharp as a butte cliff. “I...never done nothin’ with…” A sigh. Charles’ lips part, heat making him shudder. “With a man,” Arthur mumbles, pressing his mouth to the same spot, kissing at the soft depression behind the bone, nose nudging Charles’ earlobe.

Charles wouldn’t call himself a proud man, not in the way some are. Not a peacock like Dutch, nor a powder keg looking for excuses to blow like Bill. Hardly vain, like Javier, nor bullheaded and cocky in youth like Sean. He dislikes arrogance, the smug, sopping pride of men whose egos plump them from inside, stuffing their chests like fat pillows. But he can’t help the tiny pang of _something_ inside him, when Arthur admits this is his first such encounter. That their relationship, all of it, is the first he has experienced with another man. Not for lack of longing, Charles is sure. Some flare of giddy joy bubbles in his stomach, boiling up like coffee in a saucepan.

“I...been with a couple women, I guess,” Arthur says, lingering with his lips on Charles’ throat, hiding his face. His hand falls away. “But- Never like… Not like this, not touchin’ each other or…” Enjoying each other, finding pleasure in each other. His times with women were performative. An empty, barren show. “Just wanted it over. Wasn’t ever _good_…”

“Did...you always know? About yourself?”

Charles’ hand creeps up his back to his head, fingers threading through the ends of his hair, comforting. Heat floods around his neck as Arthur sighs. “Not always. But a long time.”

“Me too,” Charles says, gossamer soft. “Knew I preferred-”

Lips attach to his throat, feeling his voice hum beneath his skin, and Arthur kisses him, tight and sharp. His pulse throbs, bounding forward beneath a burst of blood vessels, fingers going tight in Arthur’s hair. “Mmm-” Nails dragging lightly on his scalp, Charles huffs, feeling the wet warmth of Arthur’s tongue soothe the stinging bruise he’s caused. “Arthur...” he breathes, and Arthur relents, letting him find the words he’s looking for.

With a shaking breath, Charles holds the back of Arthur’s neck, and his hips roll ever so slightly beneath him, unconscious, thighs clenching under Arthur’s weight. “I’m...honoured you chose me,” he says, keeping his voice level when it tries to shake.

Arthur leans back from him. Pink all over like an under ripe plum, he stares for a second, and then _giggles_, a drunken sort of laugh, as bubbly as the flutter in Charles’ gut, like he can’t believe what he’s hearing. “Are you kiddin’ me?” he asks, giddy, pealing like church bells. “I just- Wanna make sure I ain’t terrible, and- You’re grateful to _me_? Some...one-handed fumbling- Never done nothin’ intimate with no one. Don't even know how to pull a feller off proper-”

“I’d choose your fumbling over anything,” Charles says, and Arthur shuts his mouth.

He exhales. His expression droops, and resurfaces in a wretchedly beautiful smile.

“You a bigger fool than I thought.”

Charles chuckles, and thankfully, Arthur kisses him again, smile lost somewhere around Charles’ lips.

His hand resumes with Charles’ encouragement, stroking the length of his cock from base to tip, fingers spread around his swelling weight. Charles is almost silent throughout, deceptively quiet, breathless and careful with his voice. Every grunt and huff he lets slip is treasured, Arthur sucking marks into his neck, his jawline, feeling the vocal movement of hands on his own hips, groping his thighs, his back, speaking volumes if not in voice.

Hips pressing forward, his own cock touches Charles’, slipping carelessly together in their laps, nudged against the other’s belly and thighs, and Arthur rests his head on Charles’ temple as he breathes, deep and steadying, stroking them both together in his one palm, and then Charles alone again, diligent until he’s hard once more, movement slowing as his arm tires.

Feeling Charles’ hands again grope his ass, nails raking gently through the hair, Arthur shifts his hips. They clash together in a clumsy grind, friction making him clench his teeth, groan next to Charles’ ear. A decision is made.

“Charles,” he says gruffly, the same timbre as a growling dog. He drags himself away, leaning back to meet his gaze. “I wanna...try. Try again.”

Charles looks up at him, expression contentedly blank, as if he’s in the middle of a dream and hasn’t quite woken up enough to understand what’s being said. “Try’n...y’know,” Arthur murmurs, and shifts his balance, pushing back into Charles’ hands, eyeline flicking nervously downwards. “Fingers. Like you was- In the tub.”

“Oh,” Charles says, eloquently, hazy smile tweaked at the corner. “You sure? If it’s too much-”

“No, I- I _want_ to, I wasn’t foolin’ before. I wanna know what it’s... I mean I definitely thought about it, and- I want- I want that with you, I wanna… First step to somethin’...more. Y’know.”

Arthur swallows, audibly. “Bein’...together,” he mumbles. “Physical-like.”

“_Oh_,” Charles says again, and his expression turns sultry, heated like the air in Lemoyne, thick and rich with the perfume from the magnolia trees.

“I mean, only if you wanna try too, it’s been a long day-”

“Shh,” Charles breathes, and cranes his neck up to find Arthur’s lips again, pulling a fervent kiss from them, holding his gaze. “I want it.”

With a short exhale, Arthur nods, eyes caught on Charles’ mouth, the sincere care in his face. No matter what they do together, he’ll be safe with Charles, and that trust is infinitely reassuring, encouraging him to keep exploring, pressing more kisses to his jaw and cheek, touching his chest, confidence renewed. 

Wrapping his arm around Arthur’s back, Charles holds him in his lap while reaching behind to unfurl the towel he’d thrown across the bed some time before, spreading it lengthways down the coverlet from pillow to where they’re perched. The bottle from the washstand is there too, significant in its isolation, but Arthur can’t spare much thought for what it is, unfolding his legs as Charles shifts him to the bed.

It’d likely be easier if Arthur stopped kissing him, but once started it’s a difficult thing to stop doing, and he shuffles backwards towards the pillow keeping Charles crawling to meet him, pushing him back to lie down on the towel, still joined at the lips.

“If I have to say it a hundred times,” Charles says, sweeping his hair back behind his shoulder as he lies on his side beside Arthur, propped up on his elbow. “Before you no longer doubt how I want you...”

Arthur huffs, and lets his head flop back on the pillow beneath it. His cheeks are flushed, hair still damp from the humidity of the bathroom, a frazzled halo around his face. “Then I will,” Charles says, and holds his gaze as he leans, one hand splayed across Arthur’s stomach, lips finding his breast and kissing his nipple, hard. The muscles beneath his palm jump. Arthur exhales, sharp. His hips shift.

“Charles,” Arthur hisses, hands grasping at the towel he’s lying on.

“I want every inch of you,” Charles breathes, stroking across to hold his hip bone, nose buried in the softness of his chest. “Whatever you offer. All of you.”

Being so exposed is vaguely terrifying. And yet thrilling too, so unfamiliar with feeling desired, being admired, coveted, Charles’ obvious enjoyment of his body like nothing he’s ever experienced. Every scar he has is visible, every swirl of hair and blemish and blotch, every part of himself he wishes he couldn’t see, and still Charles kisses him, caresses him, whispers praises to his skin with ardent fingers, unable to resist touching.

The angry agony of his shoulder too is split open and bared, made obvious, dragging such a debilitating weight behind it. A burden that feels inconsequential as Charles kisses his abdomen and thumbs his nipple beneath the wound, nips and sucks and marks the skin across his chest until Arthur is panting, unable to remember a time when any other hands touched him, any other lips, any eyes that saw him before Charles. Sure, he’s been with a couple of women, but when Charles kisses him, he can’t even remember their names.

He is open, on show, not hidden beneath the covers or indulged only in deliberate darkness. Nor something to be ashamed of, or kept secret lest someone see or Daddy disapprove, not let down easily so his feelings aren’t too badly hurt. Charles acts on his own desire, wants to touch him, press his mouth to him, convince him that he is acknowledged, studied, _adored_, and though his nerves are wracked, stomach fluttering, Arthur’s heart is in a jubilant gallop, pulse in his ears, throbbing in his gut for more, more touch, more everything.

As he shifts his hips, his cock lolls between his spread legs, hopeful, and he can feel the press of Charles’ own against his thigh, just as hard. For _him_. Arthur would never label himself an exhibitionist, doesn't really know what exactly the word means even, but with Charles supine in front of him, stroking his belly, tracing the lines of his ribs and his hip bones, looking at him like he’s starving and Arthur is all he has appetite for - it doesn’t half make a feller feel good about himself. No one has ever looked at him like that.

Fingers grip the base of his cock then, and Charles strokes him a few times before moving to his thigh, pulling it against him, encouraging Arthur to bend his legs up, to open them further. His hips tilt, Charles momentarily pausing to find the bottle of oil amongst the tangle of legs and towel and unstoppering it with his one hand, the other resting beside Arthur’s head, weight on his elbow. With a silent question, Charles shares a look with him, and Arthur nods despite not really knowing what he’s agreeing to, biting his bottom lip to keep from squirming.

It smells floral, whatever it is, and Arthur huffs a small “oh” as the liquid first touches his skin, cool but pleasantly viscous, seeping between his thighs in an obscene slick. Better than spit, he supposes. Soon followed is Charles’ hand, massaging his balls, then up to twist around the base of his cock, and finally further, pouring a generous amount of the oil to drip down over his spread asshole. _Oh_.

The sensation is uniquely strange, like his entire groin is being covered in cold honey, doused in syrup like a stack of breakfast pancakes, and as Charles circles his hole, middle finger teasing, testing his reaction, Arthur is sure his own stomach is similarly melting into liquid, a slow ooze, leaving nothing but empty anticipation in his abdomen, thrilling and frantic like flitting butterflies, skittering over each other in their excitement.

“You good?” Charles murmurs, close to him, and Arthur realises his eyes are closed only as he opens them, finding Charles looking back at him, with the same expression the sun must give to flowers. Warm and wondrous.

“Mmm,” he hums, and shifts his hips again, feeling the oil pool on the towel beneath him, slick in his body hair. “Kinda wet. But good.”

He arches, eager, and lets his thigh rest on Charles lying beside him, baring himself like a dog shows its belly. Charles’ arm is a solid weight crooked over his leg to again reach between them, palming at his balls, spreading the oil up over his cock. It’s like silk in his hand, weightless and fragrant, and Arthur rolls his head back to breathe, laboured, stomach muscles jumping as Charles thumbs over the tip of his length.

They are the only hands he wants to touch him. The only fingers. He wants to know every ridge and whorl of them, every tiny scar and broken nail and scraped knuckle, everything Charles can offer him, in a way that overwhelms. No touch has ever seemed so desirable before. Never has he hungered for hands on him like he wants Charles’ hands, never has another’s seemed at all preferable to his own rough grip, eked out in a minute in his tent when his body won’t settle down and wiped hastily away. He wants this agonising build-up to last hours, days, suspended in the prickle and gasp of Charles’ fingers, encouraging him, beckoning him, as slow as he needs to fully experience each second, each brush and caress of skin on his.

Cautious, Charles traces his asshole again, dripping oil from his fingertips. A line is rubbed from there to a spot behind his balls, up and down, electric hot, and Arthur’s sure he can feel it in his vertebrae, like a long rope in his gut is being wound tight around Charles’ fingers and jerked.

“Ready?” he asks, whispered, as much anticipation in his voice as there is in Arthur’s arched back, his curling toes, eyes slipping over his cock, up his belly, like he’s witnessing something sacred. “Tell me to stop, slow down, anything, I will.”

“I know,” Arthur says, and tips his head back as Charles leans over him, enough to kiss his chest.

Lips pressed to his right breast, Charles finally pushes his finger inside, the pinch of teeth enough to distract Arthur from the strange stretch of muscle, the deep, tight spike of pressure. He inhales, shaky, Charles’ eyes fixed on his face from where he kisses his nipple, tongue warm, hair falling to tickle Arthur’s chest. “Arthur,” he murmurs, lips brushing his skin, fingertip prying gently past the tension in him to his first knuckle, coaxing, arm braced on the quivering weight of his spread leg. “Breathe.”

“Mhm,” Arthur hums, head still thrown back, chin tipped up to the ceiling. His body hangs in taut immobility, legs spread-eagled and Charles curled against his right side, holding him together with his one finger, pushing at his core. “Mm…breathin’. Mhm. Fuck. _Fuck_.”

With a huff, Charles smirks into his chest hair, and presses further, watching the sensation play out on Arthur’s face, a mixture of thrill and discomfort, his leg crooked higher as he tentatively rocks his hips, searching for something to ease the pressure, heel clanking into Charles’ thigh.

“After,” Charles teases, again kissing his chest, nuzzling the hair with his nose. He pulls his finger back, gathering more oil, circles around Arthur’s asshole. Watching. “Best things aren’t done in a hurry.”

“Oh- Real- _Real_ easy for you to say- Ain’t got a whole finger up your ass.”

Charles grins, and lets his teeth graze against Arthur’s bare chest, feeling his groan in his skin, buzzing with tension. “Preparation comes first.”

“_I’m_ gonna...come first,” Arthur breathes, a giddy sort of smirk flashing on his face as Charles pushes back inside him, lip caught briefly beneath his teeth lest he moan again.

Charles just hums, snickering into Arthur’s torso, too distracted to bother hiding his laughter in favour of composure. Composure means nothing when Arthur’s naked in bed with him. That disappeared sometime around the cougar den.

Slow and careful, Charles keeps pressing, stroking Arthur open, oil running through his free fingers. The heel of his hand comes to knock against Arthur’s balls from beneath, and again Arthur can’t help the noises he makes, clutching at the towel, the sheets, Charles’ shoulder, before finding his head with his right hand, brushing absently through his hair, grasping it into a messy ball. His breath shakes from him as he exhales, reminded to keep breathing past the sting of the wider middle knuckle, cock twitching towards his hollowed stomach, and it’s all Charles can do not to lean a little further and take it in his mouth, worship at that particular altar while he’s busy with his hand at another. Somehow he thinks Arthur might have some kind of conniption if he even mentions it. Next time, then.

Soon one finger becomes two, and the strangeness of the intrusion is overshadowed by the heavy warmth it brings, the exaggerated sensation of fullness, of rhythmic friction. It doesn’t hurt enough that Arthur is bothered, more a feeling of tightness, stretching, a deep pressure that seems to connect to his cock like a live wire, spreading heat from the base of his spine to his toes. Though odd, it’s like no pleasure he’s ever felt. 

Charles alters his movements, watching for reactions, noting the jump and twitch of Arthur’s thigh muscles, his shivering stomach, the clench around his fingers from inside. He groans when his mouth touches his nipple, back arching from the bed like a snapped twig, grabs for Charles’ arm when the full length of both fingers is pushed deep into him and his spare knuckles jolt into his perineum, hands vocal even now. With every twist inside him, his cock seems to leak all the more freely, dribbling a thin stream of precum onto his thigh, his belly, spattered further whenever Arthur’s muscles jump, his stomach lurches, and Charles’ grip suddenly becomes tight at his base, groping his balls and _squeezing_, only moving again when the spike subsides, and Arthur whimpers.

Charles’ own arousal is forgotten, pressed against the bed and the back of Arthur’s thigh, wet tip similarly leaking, dragging through curled leg hair as the two of them move together, satisfied by just the sight of Arthur coming undone beside him, surrendered to his fingers. He aches, lounging on his side, breath heavy as he watches Arthur unravel, explores his own body with him, poking at nerves Arthur obviously never knew he had.

It’s a feeling he can’t describe, witnessing Arthur flushed and moaning, hand moved to his own mouth to muffle his voice whenever the ache becomes sharp, or the pleasure in turn. Yes, there have been a scant couple of men in Charles’ life, but it was more than many years ago, and the sort of experience confined to back rooms and the loneliest of saloons, alley walls, never given daylight, never given names. Men with a shame in them they wielded as anger. Men without faces. Men high and terrified and brazen and lost. A man who called him something vile and lost a kneecap and a night. A man who sobbed. Always gone before morning even thought to exist in the mind of the world. This is- Everything those moments weren’t and could never be. Everything beautiful, everything good.

Though his hips rock against Arthur, his own body doesn’t matter. Nothing but Arthur matters. Arthur’s gasps and grunts, his blush, his mouth, curses and breathless laughter, snatched kisses, lopsided and graceless and perfect. His bared self, defiantly alive, wearing obvious pleasure without embarrassment, the patchwork of bruises and scars, the angular anger of his shoulder wound and the soft jiggle of his belly, his round ass, his pretty pink cock. All of him open and asking.

A matter of minutes could well be hours, lost in Arthur’s cantering pulse, massaging him, loosening tight muscles. Several times, Arthur pulls him up to kiss him, sloppy and wet, head craned from the bed, clutching at his face like it’s rosary, his heels digging deeper into the mattress beneath them whenever there’s a moment of pain or pleasure, a spike of either; both at once. He whispers Charles’ name, pleads for him, growling his welling desperation like he’s close to tears.

Breathing becomes laboured, Arthur panting in syncopated rhythm with the throb of his blood in his ears, the peaks and troughs, left hand only able to curl into itself while his right gropes Charles’ shoulder, his neck, his hair, whatever he can grab as Charles’ pace skips forward, bicep flexed and hard, long languid strokes- And then slows again, disappearing completely to stroke his cock or paw at his ass. It’s maddening. There’s a trigger inside Arthur, hammer cocked and cocked again, aimed, squeezed- Lowered. He’s crying aloud, voice clenched and splintered as if wrung through a meat grinder, grasping to find Charles’ name in the vocal mess of sound clamouring from his throat, clinging to the bed, to whatever he can touch. 

“I- I can’t-” he gasps, mouth open to groan, though even he doesn’t know what he’s referring to. “Charles…”

Again, Charles circles his hole, feeling him quiver. His cock leaks another string, dripping to his belly. Charles kisses his breast, sucking his nipple as he pushes back inside, both fingers probing deep, twisting. Breath snatched, Arthur grits his teeth with a frantic whine, and Charles shifts beside him to lessen the bend in his wrist, pressing again, harder, curling upward-

Arthur makes a noise like a deflating donkey, a bray and a wail in one. Whole body arching, tightening, even as his eyes fly open, shock fighting the heady blush on his face, the sudden choking feeling in his gut. “Christ-” he manages, staring wide-eyed at Charles, mouth hanging open to breathe. 

Charles repeats the motion, crooking his fingers, and again Arthur moans out loud, voice caught in his throat like a sob, expression frozen in slack tension like he’s been struck, his right hand snapping to Charles’ arm, clinging to it as if to keep himself afloat. What _is_ that? A deep internal something, coiled like a spring, like a snare has hooked his cock from inside, jerking at the base of his spine. 

It fluoresces, rigid and shivering in his legs, toes stretched out. Charles is panting, fingertips rubbing inside him, almost painful as the heel of his hand knocks beneath his balls, but so completely lacquered in pleasure that it doesn’t register as a different feeling at all. 

And there’s so many of them, so many sensations at once, scrambling over each other and he can’t- He can’t stop the rush forward, can’t help the urge to cry out loud no matter who in the entirety of West Elizabeth can hear him, drowning in more physical feedback than he ever thought possible for one man to experience. Every muscle Charles strokes, every thrust of his fingers, grazing the same spot again. Again, again. His lungs rasp. The oil flows around Charles’ hand. There’s salt on his cheeks as he whimpers. Charles grunts, arm like concrete.

His stomach jumps. “Charles! F-Fuck-”

“Arthur,” Charles pants in reply, moving as fast as his wrist will allow, fucking him deep with his fingers, slick and hard.

He leans down, hair draped over Arthur’s chest, and can feel the heat in his breath, the tension in him, the rush in his gut drowning any warning of pain or discomfort, blurring the line between too much and not enough. There’s only a peak to reach, and Arthur leaps towards it with every gulp of air, every loud crook of Charles’ fingers, cock bobbing on his belly, weeping profusely, bouncing as his hips are rocked.

“I got you,” Charles breathes, “C’mon.” 

Arthur wails quick snatched breaths, his prostate rubbed again, grabbing at Charles’ arm, digging in his nails. “Come for me,” Charles growls, and catches Arthur’s expression for a second as he finally does, eyes screwed shut, mouth open in a soundless cry. The hand on his bicep bites, hips jerked up, and Arthur sobs as the feeling surges and snaps, spilling over his own belly a moment later almost as his body’s afterthought, cock flushed and leaking like a faucet.

He grunts on his breath, rides it out, and Charles’ fingers slow, taper to a lazy pace, stroking the last of it from him, able to feel the clench and spasm of his deepest muscles as the high fades in a sparkling gush, leaving only shudders, buzzing in his skin.

“Charles,” he manages, panting loud, voice shaking like he’s about to burst into tears. His expression is cracked, wobbling dangerously like fragile china on the edge of a shelf. “Charles…”

“Shh,” Charles breathes, and leans up to kiss his open mouth, rocked by the tremors in Arthur’s thigh, still thrown over Charles’ hip, jerking like he’s run a marathon. “I’ve got you. You’re okay.”

Gentle, Charles shifts Arthur’s leg from on top of him, and sits up on his knees, finally moving his hand. Slick with oil, he touches Arthur’s wet cock, squeezing, stroking him, watching his asshole clench on the emptiness he leaves, gaping on nothing, more oil leaking from him to the crumpled towel beneath. With his clean hand, he leans and brushes back Arthur’s chaotic hair, damp with sweat, backs of his fingers tracing his tear-streaked cheekbone. “I got you.”

Only managing to pant, Arthur blindly gropes for him, right hand connecting and pulling him up to settle between his legs, and kiss him, clumsy but ardent. They slip together, mouths open to breathe, and some instinct moves Arthur’s hand for him, reaching unseeing for his hip. “Lemme…” With another kiss, sloppy with how desperately he grasps for air, Arthur finds Charles’ ignored cock, hanging hard and heavy still. Charles’ breath hitches.

“Don’t worry about that-”

“I got it,” Arthur breathes, mouth open, lips wet on Charles’ cheek. “I wanna-”

He thumbs over the tip of Charles’ cock, foreheads leant together, shivering as Charles settles his weight down again, heavy between his legs. “I c-can do it... C’mon.”

Quiet, Charles groans, and his eyes stay shut as Arthur helps him to his own finish, just a small amount of continuous friction away, stroking diligently at the head while Charles tugs his own hand back and forth at the base. It’s not much, but it’s enough to tip the balance.

He comes over Arthur’s heaving belly with a grinding curl of his hips, silent but for a deep grunt of relief, teeth clenched on his breath before he finds Arthur’s lax mouth kissing him again, forehead to forehead.

Propped on his elbows over him, Charles simply breathes, finds Arthur’s lips, breathes again. Slow, sinking. His hair falls in a black veil, the ends tickling Arthur’s face as it pools onto the pillow. It snags in their kiss, flyaway strands catching on wet and open mouths, and once he can find his clean hand, Charles brushes it back in a thick clump, holding it behind his head so he can lean and kiss Arthur again, finally shifting enough to sink to his side, lying half on Arthur and half beside him. Voice a ragged drone in every breath, Arthur lets his legs fall exhausted to the bed and his head to the pillow, every muscle twitching, like the aftershocks of an earthquake in his thighs.

They lie there. Breathing.

“Fuck, Charles…”

There’s a huff, and Charles takes a deep breath, eyes closing on his exhale. Fuck, indeed.

“Charles,” Arthur says again, as if it’s the only word he remembers through the haze in his head. Charles hums, cheek pressed to the bed. Not much of an answer. It’s all he can manage, heartbeat loud in his ears, until he feels Arthur snake his arm out from underneath him, curling around his far side to wrap weakly around his back, fingers absently stroking at a patch of skin.

Eyes blink open, and he turns his head to find Arthur’s profile beside him, staring dazedly up at the ceiling, his cheeks pink, a wild grin plastered on his face like wallpaper. His chest is striped with cum, belly jiggling as he heaves his breath, and a part of Charles wonders just how long it’s been since Arthur felt anything close to the pleasure currently bubbling in his smile, drying crudely on his skin, trembling in his thighs. 

Breathing deep enough that Charles can almost hear his lungs creaking, rattling, he suddenly huffs a laugh, voice bright and wet, glassy with wobbling emotion. Slightly thicker than usual, like the air after rain, when droplets cling to sheltering petals, dripping only as they start to reopen. Grinning, he takes gulps of oxygen, and laughs some more.

“That bad?” Charles murmurs from beside him, humour muffled by the few inches of towel he’s managed to lie on.

Arthur snorts, a dopey sort of smile on his face. Like a Labrador retriever with an especially exciting stick. “‘Course not…” he starts, and pauses to breathe, his weak left hand idly rubbing at his thigh, backs of his fingers pressed to the jittery muscle. “I’unno why I’m- Just ain’t never... Felt...nothin’ like that.” Another laboured breath, and again he laughs. “Nothin’. What _was_ that? Shit.”

Smiling just enough to be noticed, Charles leans up on his elbow, and touches Arthur’s cheek with his thumb, stroking over the line of his cheekbone. “Good, though?” he asks, quiet, whether from shyness or exertion, Arthur isn’t sure.

“Oh, no, fuckin’ terrible- Shot all over myself ‘cause I hated it.”

Charles huffs, snickering at the look Arthur gives him. “C’mere you fool,” Arthur says, and wriggles his arm up around his neck to pull him down, meeting his lips in a clumsy kiss. They’re both breathless, smiling too much to properly do anything but bump into each other, but it’s perfect all the same, Arthur only pulling away when he can’t hold his head up any longer, letting it fall back with a content sigh. “Might just need...a few more times,” he mumbles, eyes heavy. “Just- To make sure it’s..._definitely_...my kinda thing. Y’know?”

A smirk tugs at his lips, and Charles hums his amusement, settling beside Arthur on his back, lying side by side. “Next time, then,” he says, soft, and catches Arthur’s grin as it resurfaces, slanted upwards on his blotchy cheeks.

They lie together in satisfied silence. Though it isn’t ever really silence, between them. Never a lack of conversation, or an absence. It’s just a moment filled with something that isn’t audible. An unspoken language, content and comfortable. 

Arthur’s chest slows, heart rate normalising, and he stretches out his legs once the tremors stop, the towel creased and folded under his hips. The oil shines on his skin, vaguely floral. He snickers again. His hand touches Charles’ beside him.

All he feels is a deep contentment. No pain comes from his shoulder or torso, only a pleasant buzz over every inch of him, just like in the bath, thoughts silent, head heavy. There’s an emptiness behind his rib cage, where before was a chronic tangle of doubt and worry, a cluster of thorns, and though Arthur is sure it’ll be back before long, for the moment it is blissfully quiet, soothed, relieved by some physical release he didn’t really know was possible. He’s never felt anything like that. Didn’t even know he was capable of feeling something like that. 

Strange how when he’s with Charles, the world seems so full of possibilities. Things he’d never dared imagine, lest the sting of absence overwhelm, and Charles makes them seem normal. Attainable.

Arthur laughs again, dazed. His fingers find Charles’, beside him on the bed, and he locks them together in his.

The lamps cast long shadows. Fluid and indistinct, the light pools in the curves and swells of Charles’ body beside him, a fiery bronze glow lingering on every scar that marrs his chest, every dark hair, the thickness of his cock, soft on his hip. Arthur watches him breathe. Beautiful isn’t adequate.

Head tilted, Charles meets his gaze. Arthur’s brain presents a thought. Just the one, risen hazy from his afterglow as if woken from dreams. What would it take to make sure every morning he wakes, he wakes up to this very same view?

With a sigh, Arthur smiles. “You good?” he asks, voice quiet.

“I’m good,” Charles says, soft as sleep, like a breeze through the tree canopy, stirring the leaves. “You?”

“Mhm. Real good. Best I felt...in a long while.”

“Good.”

“Bit messy though.”

Charles chuckles, eyeing Arthur’s chest, his belly, the shining oil spread between his thighs and smeared over his groin. “Sorry,” he says, gentle, a thrill of some proud satisfaction visible in his expression.

A shrugging movement, and Arthur peers down at his own body, wrinkling his nose. “Feel like I’m...marinatin’,” he says, and Charles barks a rumbling laugh, any sense of shyness disappearing in the face of Arthur’s dopey grin, his silly smile.

“Look like it too,” he replies, and Arthur snickers, delighted like a schoolboy hearing a rude word.

He would do anything to see that easy humour in Arthur all the time, no hint of self-consciousness or doubt, even naked with oil dripping out of his ass. It’s like the weight he carries has been lifted, if only for a short while.

With a huff to tail his laughter, Charles shifts close, turning onto his side again, and for a moment simply nuzzles Arthur’s nose with his, eyes closed, breathing in the same space. “I ain’t mind much, though,” Arthur murmurs, distracted by the whisper touch of Charles’ lips, the softness after such a frantic chase, a caress to contrast the full body shuddering of just a short while ago. “To tell the truth of it.”

He tilts his head slightly, words trailing into nothing as he breathes against Charles’ mouth, drawn to every spot of pigment, every mark and scar, every stitch that creates his tapestry of skin, eyes flicking across his face as though greedy to take it all in at once. A quarter inch more, Arthur kisses him, the shyest meeting of lips he can manage.

For a moment afterwards, Charles doesn’t open his eyes. He breathes. His brows furrow, as if thinking too deeply, listening to something he can barely hear, and when his eyes reopen, a flare of brown and gold in the candlelight from the bedside lamp, it feels as if he wants to say something, his lips parted, caught in the hesitance before speaking.

It only lasts a second. Charles exhales, inaudible, his mouth pressed closed, and Arthur gets the strange impression that, somehow, a promise has been made. He isn’t entirely sure what promise it is. Only that it’s genuine.

“I’ll clean up,” Charles says, still soft, and kisses him once more before he shifts away, breaking whatever spell had been cast as he sits up. “Rest a minute.”

A great bear’s shoulders rise from the bed, black mane tousled, falling down his back and over his chest, and Arthur watches him with unguarded admiration, missing his weight and warmth at once, his hand in his, left sprawled unkempt and unbecoming in his nakedness. In comparison to Charles - the rough-edged epitome of handsome, aquiline grace, a being of beauty and power - he must look like some kind of questionable stray found rooting through litter and thrown to the curb. 

He stifles a smile, shifts and sits up, letting his head fall back against the wall behind the bed, and truthfully is too exhausted to care about what a state he’s in. Slumped and sweating like a mated lion luxuriating on a sun-baked rock, his own cum drying in his belly hair. All he cares for is the pleasant hum between his ears, a haze of warmth and satisfaction, and he clings to the feeling like it’s a blanket, content in empty comfort.

Stretching his arms out, Charles heads to the washstand, collecting a small towel, dampened with the water in the basin. His scars are more visible now that Arthur isn’t distracted by whatever his hands are doing, scattered cracks and chips in his body’s fired clay - a body any god would kneel to - and it strikes Arthur that in the excitement, he barely paid Charles a fraction of the attention he paid him. Which is so very typical of Charles; always giving, always providing. Perhaps, in the morning, Arthur can endeavour to repay him. Or persuade him to sleep in with him a little longer than usual, at least. No one deserves it like he does.

Methodical, Charles washes his own hands with a hard bar of soap, splashes his face, brushes through his hair, wipes his chest, the sheen of sweat covering him catching the light from the bedside lamps. He brings the damp towel back to the bed, smiling the barest smile when he catches Arthur watching him, honest as stricken driftwood, bleached by the sea.

“You don’t gotta do it,” Arthur mumbles, voice slipping low, pooled in his chest like the wax runoff from a melting candle, but Charles simply perches on the edge of the bed beside him, and gently wipes away the mess from Arthur’s belly and thighs.

His expression is naked, lamp-lit and raw in its affection as he cleans Arthur, washing off his skin and patting it dry, mopping the oil from between his legs, as if it’s another of his daily medical tasks, important but never embarrassing, ensuring Arthur feels cared for - never overwhelmed. They pull the larger towel out from underneath him once the oil is soaked up, and Charles makes a pile of things to be laundered, thankful the sheets are still clean at least. Stained sheets would be harder to explain than damp towels.

Arthur is barely awake once he’s finished. His head lolls, expression blank. Sitting naked in bed with his left arm cradled to his stomach, he seems to drift in place, watching Charles for a moment and then sinking towards sleep in the next, eyelids heavy. Exhausted.

To Charles it’s just another victory. It’s been far too long since Arthur was able to relax so easily, feel safe enough to doze in bed without multiple guards patrolling the perimeter, without a knife beneath his pillow he is terrified to use but can’t be parted from, without a belly full of whiskey, without Charles in reaching distance, without the kinds of nightmares that leave him white and shaking, choking back tears. Far too long and far too much pain. Arthur deserves rest, more than anyone, and if Charles can help with switching his mind off for long enough that he can finally just exist without its weight suffocating him from inside, then he has succeeded.

The fact Arthur wants to sleep beside him too, is more than he dared dream.

Happy to let him be, he potters about the room as Arthur dozes, picking up their discarded clothes, the towels they’d used after the bath, tidying the shaving kit and washbasin, the little bottle of oil. Their bags are still waiting to be unpacked, Arthur’s satchel lying on the chest at the end of the bed, with a new fur flap courtesy of Pearson’s rudimentary leatherworking skills. It looks handsome. A flash of colour is visible beneath it, a short beaded tassel attached to the buckle, blue and green. Courtesy of Charles.

His journal must be inside. Usually he’d write or draw before settling down to sleep, but it seems he’s much too tired for journaling this particular adventure just yet, sighing deeply in his semi-slumber, head leant back on the bare wall he sits against.

Instead, Charles unpacks some of his own belongings. Tooth powder and a bristle brush, a canteen of water, first aid kit, some provisions, a book of poetry Arthur lent him some time before, which Charles is attempting to read by himself. It’s a strange book. Admittedly he finds it easier reading _to_ Arthur, rather than alone. Somehow the peculiar phrases and imagery, of poetry especially, make more sense when Arthur is listening, head on his shoulder or in his lap if they can find the privacy, soothed by the careful hum of his voice. It’s easier to find the beauty in the words when he speaks them to Arthur. Even the most dull-witted man could be inspired to poetry with him as their muse.

He glances over at him again, still dozing, purplish marks already blossoming on his throat and chest, the signatures of Charles’ kisses, in direct protest to the pyre that has devoured his left shoulder, the ashes remaining long after the fire, spider burns still blazing outward, inward, deepest damage unseen. It’s a comfort, if a strange one, that Arthur’s skin now shows marks made in desire, and affection; marks _he_ made, and marks Arthur wanted; as well as the others, those made in pain. Fear.

Above the thrill of knowing Arthur wants his touch, wants _him_, the new marks are evidence that Arthur is still whole, still breathing, perhaps bruised in places but not broken. Though so much damage has been done, Charles would never have believed Arthur would be dozing in candlelight, kisses bright and confident, emblazoned on his skin, when he dragged him from the Dakota River all those weeks ago.

It helps. To see him like this. It feels like safety. Like belonging. Not to a place or a group, a faith; just to one person, and what he has become to him.

Once he’s finished with his own nightly routine - or as close to it as he can manage in a foreign room with more space to move around than the entirety of Hosea’s lean-to, within which he calls a six by three patch of dirt his own - he douses the lamps, and carefully traverses the bed in the darkness, slipping beneath the coverlet on the opposite side to Arthur. The mattress creaks, dipping under his weight, but it’s soft and clean, much more than either of them have been afforded in many months, and Charles is admittedly too tired to worry that he isn’t meant for such luxury.

“Arthur?”

He shifts towards the centre of the bed, eyes adjusting to the dark and finding Arthur’s edges, a fuzzy outline still sitting up beside him. “Arthur,” he murmurs again, and leans up on his elbow, gently touching Arthur’s hand, curled in his lap.

A huff, and Arthur hums, the drone of sinking consciousness, so very close to sleep.

“Lie down with me,” Charles says, and catches the glint of Arthur’s eyes as they open, just enough awareness to wrestle the covers from beneath his hips and slump beside Charles, curling on his uninjured side, sighing as his head hits a real pillow. A cotton case, with down inside. He hums again, content.

And then after a moment, shifts forwards, finding Charles in the dark and pressing into his side to lay his head on Charles’ shoulder instead, weak arm resting over his bare chest, legs wrapped together. Charles chuckles, arranging the covers over them both, his own arm curled around Arthur’s back, keeping him close. For a summer night, it isn’t especially warm so far into the mountains, and Charles is grateful for the chill, all the nights they spent together beneath canvas, while Arthur was still very unwell, remaining hot and sticky in his mind. Sleeping together like this is far more enjoyable.

Arthur sighs, breathing deep. “You good?” Charles asks, feeling his breath on his chest.

“Mhm,” Arthur mumbles, left thumb stroking weakly where it rests on Charles’ sternum. “M’baked.”

“Rest, then. As long as you want.”

“Mm. Cougar..._and_ you. M’too old for...so much excitement.”

A chuckle stirs Arthur’s hair. “Then get some sleep, old man.”

“Mmm. S’Easy with...you here. Missed it.”

Another gentle sigh, and Charles turns just enough to kiss Arthur’s head, his hand rubbing absently at his back beneath the covers. “Me too,” he murmurs, and feels Arthur exhale against his skin, warm and still, seemingly asleep before his inhale. “Sleep well.”

The room is silent save for breathing, so much quieter than the camp at Clemens Point, than the bustling summer night in Lemoyne beside the lake. It’s noisy enough sleeping within a few feet of Bill Williamson, but even while the gang sleeps around him - crowded into their tents and wagons like chickens in a coop, stacked together row on row - the night is always alive with sound. Horses burr and bray, taking their turns to watch the sleeping herd, as those of the gang tasked with guarding the camp, trudging to and from the trees, the shore, through the ferns, the wet mud. Rifles are loaded, matches lit, cigarettes smoked, bottles uncorked, and if ever someone gets up to locate the outhouse in the night, it too has its own soundtrack.

Wildlife doesn’t pause for the dark either. Nocturnal neighbours forage and hunt amongst the oak trunks, shelter in the bracken and berry bushes, and cloud above the Point, bats like flocks of starlings, flitting and darting across the sky, drops of ink flung from a pen. Owls frequent the woods to the south, and Charles knows their calls like his own voice, but hasn’t yet seen one to confirm what species they are, only heard them, as he waits for sleep to come. Their cries are much less haunting than the foxes’, at least, or the packs of coyotes across the marshy flats of Robard Farm, the solitary opossum shrieking like a banshee as it wanders through the underbrush.

Here, in such lush country, it seems strange to lie in bed and hear nothing but Arthur beside him. Wrong, even. As if the world has been divided into two, an inside and an outside, keeping each other out.

Charles has never been entirely comfortable with walls. A lack of familiarity, he supposes, always used to being out far more than in. And, truthfully, an ingrained fear of entrapment, a fear of being caged, never getting out. Like a wolf being kept as a house pet, chained in someone’s yard.

The room is safe, clean, far more generous than either of them need. Yet he feels stifled too, as if the same confines they feel at camp with the others - with Dutch and Strauss and Miss Grimshaw demanding to know why Arthur is daring to breathe air he hasn’t paid for, when he hasn’t made them any money in six weeks - are still affecting them in Strawberry, so very far away.

To truly escape would require a much longer journey, of that he’s sure.

No matter. Arthur breathes deeply beside him, shifting slightly in his sleep, his cheek pillowed on Charles’ chest as opposed to the surely much more comfortable _real_ pillow beneath Charles’ head. Feathers _and_ down, it feels like. Unfamiliar luxury, that Charles is sure is wasted on him. Like shoeing a mule with gold.

He’d be happy sleeping anywhere, or never sleeping at all, as long as Arthur was there with him. And the truth of that is still surprising. To know in his heart that Arthur has become his comfort, that Arthur is his safety, his _home_, in every sense of the word that Charles grew up without definition for, and without illusion that he would ever find anything even resembling so alien a concept - he still can’t quite believe it’s true.

“Charles?” Arthur’s voice is thick and drooping, heavy-laden with sleep like a bough with snow. His eyes stay closed.

“Mm?”

For a long moment, nothing more is said, and Charles is sure Arthur is asleep, a still weight on his chest. He sweeps his hair from beneath his neck to settle on the pillow again. His eyes fall shut.

“I love you,” Arthur says.

It’s no more than a murmur, sighed against Charles’ skin. The darkness wobbles in his eyes as he looks up, open just a fraction, closing again before any awareness can truly come.

With a soft exhale, Arthur shifts, his hand curling weakly over Charles’ breastbone. “Y’know that,” he mumbles, barely audible. “Right?”

And again he falls silent. No need for answer or acknowledgement, he remains peaceful in his sleep, his cheek resting gently atop Charles’ skittering heart.

Charles stares into the dark.

There’s no sound but Arthur’s breathing. The length of his left leg is pressed against Charles’ own beneath the covers, wrapped naked together, skin on skin. He is solid, warm, yet Charles is sure in that moment that if he moves, his body will shatter, veins cracking open like fault lines in pottery, bursting from crepe paper skin. One breath could surely break him apart, and so he holds it until his heart drums in his ears, galloping, scrambling to contain the tidal surge of some elation he doesn’t have a name for, threatening to overflow between his ribs, crashing over him like a wave.

He smiles into the darkness, alight like a struck match, presses his lips together, cheeks so round the muscles ache.

“I know,” he breathes, and looks down at Arthur’s head, his ruffled hair, his expressionless sleep. Whether he had meant to speak or not, whether he was even conscious or not - it doesn’t matter.

Charles brings his hand up, and strokes Arthur’s cheek with his thumb before letting it fall, resting it on top of Arthur’s own hand, entwining their fingers on his left chest. “I love you,” he whispers, and smiles again, resting his head back on the pillow. “Too.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [yells softly] probably asleep L-word confessions!!!


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He rests his hand back where it was on Charles’ hip, and squeezes, admiring the softness of flesh in his palm as he rests against the pillow, tracing the raised edges of stretch marks and old scars, thinking. “I...wanna locate us some kinda breakfast,” he says finally, with a nod as if to convince himself. “Some real food, not just provisions. Preferably with syrup.”  
The curve of Charles’ back is pronounced, sweeping from his wide ribs to his hips, and Arthur follows the arch of his spine with his hand, feeling him press closer in response. His belly is heavy on Arthur’s clothed hip, and he wants nothing but to undress again just to feel Charles’ skin on his, feel him between his legs, his muscle, his weight. “And then... I kinda...wanna fool around some more.”

_Whoever you are, now I place my hand upon you, that you be my poem,  
I whisper with my lips close to your ear,  
I have loved many women and men, but I love none better than you._

  


Morning dawns decidedly less loudly than usual.

Cocooned in their room, with four walls between the world outside and a chronic lack of sleep, neither wakes until well past the sun has risen, birdsong only just audible, streaming light stifled by the heavy curtains at the windows. No clanging skillet is heard as Pearson wrestles his meagre larder into something resembling breakfast, no barking Cain, no chasing Jack, giggling as he escapes a morning wash save for that given by a dog’s wagging tongue. There is no explosion of metaphorical laundry set out to air from Dutch’s tent, as Molly yet again finds him preening his feathers in front of Mary-Beth, to the stifled discomfort of everyone within earshot. There are no arguments at all, in fact. No speeches, no still-drunk-from-last-night fights, no epithets, no hissed stage whispers between John and Abigail, much louder than they hope and much more vicious than either of them truly mean. Sean doesn’t swear when jolted awake by Hosea’s swatted newspaper, the Reverend doesn’t stumble past a row of bedrolls, tripping over sleeping knees in a blind morphine haze, and Miss Grimshaw doesn’t rampage through the sleeping girls like a fox through a chicken coop, snapping until there are feathers between her teeth. 

No nightmares trouble Arthur’s sleep.

The world is quiet. It is calm, and warm. Two heartbeats rest together, swaddled in each other, covers tangled around hips and between legs. Slow and soft, like feeling sand sink between his toes, Arthur wakes first.

He is wrapped in Charles. Like wearing a winter overcoat, he’s covered head to toe in warmth and fur, a heavy quilt breathing soundly into his hair. He shifts, stretches up from beneath Charles’ chin like a cat uncurling, held so snugly in his arms that he couldn't actually move if he wanted to.

Smiling, lopsided, Arthur rests his head up on the pillow, blinking to chase the lingering fog of sleep away. For a long moment, he simply watches, admiring the blank beauty of Charles’ face, his easy breathing, hair falling over his cheek. He doesn’t trust his left hand enough to brush the strands back without poking Charles’ eye out, so instead he lets it rest against his arm, thrown across Arthur’s waist and folded over his back, keeping him close.

It’s difficult to tell what time it is with the curtains drawn, but the light managing to peek past from the window suggests it’s well into morning at least. He shifts again, untangling his legs from around Charles’ thigh, and huffs when the arms around him flex, great boughs of an oak tree snaked across his middle, tightening their protective hold.

“Charles,” Arthur whispers, feeling one hand cover the small of his back, ignoring the giddy little jump his heart makes in response. “Hey…”

There’s only a deep sigh from beside him, Arthur’s fingers trailing weakly over scars embedded in Charles’ bicep, almost the same spider pattern as those on his face. He strokes over them as best he can with his stuttering thumb, wary of all his fingers’ tendency to jerk and shake without permission, movement delayed and jagged, like an old phonograph, music skipping in bouts of static.

Concentrating, he runs his hand down Charles’ arm. Feels the landscape of his shoulder and bicep, swelling and dipping, a topographic model beneath his curled fingers. His hand trembles, all the worse the more he tries to stop it, and around Charles’ elbow, his shoulder gives out, a tight clamping pain shutting down any further movement.

Nostrils flared, Arthur sighs, and stops. Charles’ hand moves on his back for a moment, a slow, absent stroking, before falling still again.

Waking up beside him is worth anything. He doesn’t remember when he last did so. Weeks at least. It’s even longer since he last woke up naturally, soundly, without retching on memory, tearing at his sheets in fear.

Charles breathes, lips slightly parted, and again his hand moves up and down Arthur’s back, hugging him in his sleep.

“Charles,” Arthur murmurs, voice gravelly, shifting in the tight hold, as comfortable as it is. Relaxing in Charles’ arms is far from an unpleasant feeling at all, rather it would be much too easy to stay in bed all day with Charles wrapped around him, like the most perfect blanket, keeping him safe, wanting him close. “You gonna let me up?”

Again there’s no answer. Arthur wriggles. “Charles, I gotta piss.”

Frown appearing on his face in his sleep at all the squirming, Charles again reflexively tightens his hold, shifting Arthur closer to his chest. 

“Hey- C’mon you giant bastard, lemme up,” Arthur says, exhaling his laughter at the reaction, trying to worm out of Charles’ arms. “Not that this ain’t nice, ‘cause it’s really, real nice- Ain’t had many cuddles in my life but- But I gotta- _Charles_. Sunshine. Honey. Darlin’.”

“Sunshine?” Charles mumbles, sleep making his smile look all the more beautiful, hazy like the morning light venturing past the curtains.

“Sunshine,” Arthur says, and smiles himself as he kisses Charles’ mouth, and then once more, because he can’t resist. “Lemme out of your ridiculous arms so I can go pee. Please.”

Charles hums, eyes still steadfastly closed, as if considering the request. His hand moves to Arthur’s hip, squeezing gently at the very top of his thigh, before finally pulling away, letting Arthur shift out of his hold. “Don't be long,” he murmurs, voice slow with sleep. Arthur isn’t entirely sure he’s actually awake.

“Save my place,” he replies, chuckle in his voice, and sits up, touching Charles’ bereft hand as he gets up from the bed.

Charles is still and silent again before Arthur manages to stand, scratching at his naked chest as he finds his feet, stifling a yawn. He wiggles his toes on the ornate rug beneath the bed, testing his own weight on his ankles, knowing they often refuse to work first thing in the morning.

As he moves, he notes a new ache in the lowest pit of his abdomen. It’s unlike the usual patchwork of pain he feels upon getting up every morning in that it is unfamiliar, and, despite being uncomfortable, it also has an obvious cause, and it’s viscerally satisfying to know where it’s from. His spine seems to be whining, deep in the muscles and low enough that it barely counts as his back at all, but he doesn’t bemoan its existence like he does the shoulder pain, the rib pain, the neck and ankles and arm pain, rather almost enjoys the new sensation, and the memory of the pleasure that put it there.

If they do end up going further, physically, whatever that means, he probably won’t walk for a week.

Arthur snickers to himself, giddy that he can even think such a thing without immediate regret, without a vague veil of doubt and shame colouring any wants he might have. This must be what teenagers feel. This must be what a young man is supposed to go through. A dizzy sort of madness, wanting a girl for the first time, weak at the thought of it, too much _need_ than can be contained within one clumsy body.

It must be the same the world over. For as long as humans have walked the earth. Arthur is just twenty years late.

He attends to his bladder, and then potters around the hotel room in the wan light following an approximation of his usual morning routine. His discarded union suit is located, folded neatly on top of the chair he threw it at the previous evening, and he pulls it on to cover himself from the waist down, noting that both his and Charles’ clothes have been rescued from the floor where they left them.

Shirts and jeans are folded in separate piles, and his belongings have been respectfully unpacked from their bags, tooth powder by the wash basin, comb beside it, a pack of cigarettes, his matchbook. His humble stash of medical supplies too has been carefully arranged on the washstand alongside a clean towel; the safety pin he uses to fasten his bandages, clean gauze, and antiseptic ointment - Charles’ own recipe - amongst the collection.

He must have fallen asleep while Charles tidied the room, admittedly exhausted for the day’s ride, and everything else afterwards. Though if he’s honest, he doesn’t know when he last slept as well as he just did. Perhaps all it takes to cure insomnia and nightmares is a near-death experience and then Charles taking him to bed.

After washing, he takes a moment to inspect his shaved face, impressed with how well Charles managed. He looks more like himself than he has in weeks. Feels like it too.

Although, the love bites are certainly new.

He’s never been given a love bite before.

Leaning close to the mirror, twisting his neck to see the extent of them, he admires the spots of bruising that have bloomed, the evidence of Charles’ kisses, his nipping teeth, and again feels a giddy pang in his stomach, butterflies already in full flight despite the early hour. There’s some down the right side of his chest too, bitten and kissed into his breast, his ribs, the sensation of Charles’ mouth locking over his nipple seared deliciously into his memory like a brand. 

He huffs at his own reflection, stifling a smirk. If Dutch could see him now. If Hosea knew what a fool he’d raised. A fool and a romantic. Weak at the knees and fawning like a lovesick boy.

Bottom lip chewed between his teeth, he gazes over at the bed, where Charles is still sound asleep. Arms outstretched as if lost without something to hold, covers folded around his hips. Arthur wonders if it would be rude to draw him while he rests, to capture his peaceful expression on paper lest he ever forget what it’s like to have woken up beside him.

A satisfied sigh, and he looks back to the mirror. There are more marks spattered over his forearm, punctuated by parallel scratches, cut into his skin. That’d be the cougar, he supposes, thumbing over some speckled bruising as best he can with his lame hand, cuts thankfully not deep enough to truly cause much damage, scabbed over already. It’s lucky she only glanced him, glanced _them_, her weight smashing into his forearm before her claws could reach his head. Lucky. Very lucky. A few more minor injuries make little difference, considering the state of the rest of him.

On cue, his eyeline shifts reluctantly to his left shoulder, contentment fading quickly, the last light of the sun before storm clouds take hold, and he frowns at the reflection in the mirror, the open, uncovered wound, dried-out overnight in the air. The Arthur in the mirror frowns back at him. 

Behind them, Charles sighs in his sleep, and though he wants nothing more than to slip back into bed with him, doze for another while in his arms, the reflection of himself grunts his frustration, and scoops the medical supplies from the washstand into his one working arm. Arthur follows, and draws the curtains enough to let in some light to see by, sitting in the chair by the window to begin the arduous task of redressing his shoulder, throwing a string of bandages to the sill.

Charles meanwhile sleeps far later than he normally would. Sprawled out on a soft mattress, he dozes in the warmth where Arthur was, face pressed into their pillow, breathing the scent of bath oil, of shaving balm, of matches and hay and leather and Arthur.

It’s only when his unconscious mind realises Arthur isn’t actually in the bed with him that he wakes up enough to look, and confirms he is indeed alone, hugging an empty bed to himself.

Momentary alarm has him up at once, grasping at the sheets as if to check he isn’t hiding beneath the covers, to check the bed is definitely, terrifyingly empty. Arthur’s gone. Why is Arthur gone? Maybe a nightmare, an attack of memory, _something_, and Charles has slept selfishly through it. He pulls the mussed covers up, untangling his legs from the fabric, and- 

Finds Arthur sat past the end of bed within the yellow window glow. Like some sort of angelic apparition. Except he’s not wearing pants.

“Arthur?” he mumbles, voice thick.

“Mornin’,” Arthur replies, a safety pin held between his lips.

His torso is bare. But he’s clearly alive, at least.

Sweeping his hair up with one hand, Charles sits back, blinking at the sunlight from the partly-drawn curtains, exhaling his undue panic. The covers settle in his lap. He breathes again, and his shoulders slump.

“Morning,” he repeats, absently touching the sheet beside him, as if wondering whether Arthur was ever truly there. If last night was some kind of dream. His hair falls around his chest, and he brushes it with his fingers as he gets his bearings, compulsively teasing out the curls that dried in since he slept on them damp, unruly black waves like twisted liquorice pulled through his hand.

“You good?” Arthur asks, voice distracted, terse, and Charles again looks over at him, finally able to work out what he’s doing, bandages piled in his lap like a tangle of beige snakes. Several layers are badly wrapped around his chest.

“Sure,” Charles says, frown coming to rest on his brow. “You?”

“Mhm- Just tryin’ to- If the fuckin’ thing would cooperate, this’d be a damn sight easier-” There’s a sharp hiss. “Goddamnit.”

Arthur deflates in his chair, slumped in the sunlight, his paltry collection of medical supplies balanced on his thighs and on the floor, bandages spilling from the windowsill. His union suit’s sleeves are knotted loosely around his waist, a similar faded red to the marks on his throat, blushing posies beneath his skin, tinged with purple. Charles swallows his admiration.

He’s already out of bed before Arthur can protest, emerging from the sheets like a statue from marble, not noticing how Arthur’s gaze slingshots across the room to his naked body, or perhaps just choosing not to react. 

“You don’t gotta help, I can do it,” he snaps, quickly enough that it’s devoid of any real authenticity, hand grabbing for the loose bandages, pulling them up and away. “Go back to bed, it’s fine- I can… I can do it.”

“I know,” Charles says, soft.

He takes the safety pin from Arthur’s hand, and kneels before him on the rug, collecting the assembled supplies before they fall from his lap, setting them out on the windowsill or on the floor beside him. Then, gentle and slow, he leans up, and waits for Arthur’s guarded eyes to meet his before he reaches to unravel the mess wrapped around his shoulder in a haphazard attempt to dress it. All crumpled bandages and slipping gauze. It’s tricky to do with two hands, but with one it’s almost impossible. “But you don’t have to.”

Arthur huffs, and stays silent.

Careful, Charles unfurls the wrappings until Arthur’s shoulder is bare again, gauze falling away. He hasn’t packed it. The crater remains, ugly as ever, and Arthur visibly stiffens, head downcast. As if some part of him had hoped it might have disappeared overnight. Charles has tried to convince him to leave the dressing off, several times, knowing the air will help heal the wound far quicker than keeping it covered, stifling it, but for Arthur it’s easier said than done. The damage is far more than physical.

“It’s washed?”

“Yeah.”

“Ointment?”

“Yes.”

“You washed your hands?”

“_Yes_, damnit.”

“I’ve asked you to ask for help before?”

“...Maybe.”

Charles is concentrating on his shoulder, wrangling the roll of bandaging. His eyebrow raises.

Arthur scrunches his nose. “_Yes_.”

“So you didn’t wake me because?”

“‘Cause I’m a selfish old bastard who don’t deserve help nor care, tender loving or otherwise. Brings me out in hives.”

Charles refuses to volley that deflection. He clicks his tongue. His mouth tightens.

Kneeling up to reach still, he folds a new wad of gauze and packs the shotgun wound as gently as if he’s pressing flowers between paper, filling the shallow depth of the cavity with fabric. For such strong hands, he has the most delicate touch when needed, steady and precise in every movement. Arthur has always wondered if Charles’ assertion that he can’t draw anything more detailed than a stick figure is modesty rather than truth. His wood carvings are the most beautiful things, intricate and alive; even if a pencil isn’t his chosen medium, Charles definitely has an artist’s hands.

Lips in a taut line, he holds a clean gauze pad against the site, shining with the layer of ointment smudged into its tattered edges, the skin ripped and raw, newly pink as it tries to regrow. With the bandage neatly unfolded, the mess Arthur had made in his solo attempt unravelled, he starts to wind it around Arthur’s chest once more, gauze held firm beneath, crisscrossing his sternum to keep the trailing end from slipping, and the broad muscles of his torso stiffly supported. 

After another silent moment, Arthur starts to help. Charles only meets Arthur’s eyes then, watching him assist with his good hand, making sure the fabric lies flat and tight against his body.

Again, Arthur frowns, nose wrinkled. He sighs, and finally answers honestly. “I didn’t wanna wake you,” he mumbles, irritable, like a bee trapped in an old gourd, buzzing in hollow frustration. Stiff, he lifts his good arm so Charles can pass the roll of bandage beneath his armpit. “‘Cause I should be able to do it without botherin’ you, for a start.” Charles’ fingers brush his chest hair, and Arthur bites his urge to wet his own lips, a fluttering butterfly stirring behind his ribs despite a stomach full of lead unease.

“‘Cause you never get enough sleep,” he continues, snapping like it’s an accusation, watching the rhythmic movements of Charles’ hands. “Always last to bed and first up, and lately that’s my fault more’n just you bein’ _you_ and gettin’ up far too early to make everyone breakfast they never bother to thank you for, like some kinda _maniac_.”

Holding his gaze for a moment, Charles’ expression softens with the barest hint of humour in Arthur’s voice. “And ‘cause...I just- I know it’d be better off uncovered, I- Just. I...don’t like lookin’ at it,” Arthur says, quieter, words trailing away with his eyes.

Even covered by the first few layers of bandaging, he doesn’t look at it. Still avoids turning his head towards it. Never touches it, even accidentally. It’s like the whole area has been erased from his mind, like the wires to that part of his body have been cut, and his left arm doomed to dangle limply from a disconnected shoulder, fizzling in and out of life like a flickering flame in a leaking lantern. His own physical perception of his arm is shaky at best. The pain is felt, felt in every inch of him, but the nerves that give him finer sensations from clavicle to fingertip - that tell him when something touches him, that communicate heat and sharpness and movement - they waver in numb nothingness, blinking in choppy, muted rhythm, like parts of a circuit that have shorted out, only to suddenly jolt with a surge of pain, and then die again. How can he acknowledge that which, most days, isn’t there at all? Something he can’t reliably touch, can’t process. Devoid of feeling, cut off from his body’s whole.

In all honesty, Charles doesn’t like to dwell on Arthur’s injury either. It isn’t easy to look at it; but he does, deliberately. He makes sure to study its details, take in the mutilation, the scarring, the colour, the depth, the layers of tissue split open like the skin of a burst grape.

It scares him. The _extent_ of it; the hideous extent of what Arthur went through, then and every day since, and also the degree to which Charles _feels _because of it, feels Arthur’s pain like it’s his own, feels an anger he has never known towards a man he’s never seen, and feels so deep and all-encompassing a love for the man who survived, who he watched claw his way back from the brink of death. A love like the one that resides in him now, lodged somewhere behind his lungs - he didn’t think it was possible for someone like him to have that kind of attachment.

That scares him.

Though the pit left in Arthur’s flesh has never hurt him physically, it has caused Charles to feel more than he has ever felt.

So he makes sure to acknowledge it, as uncomfortable, frightening, overwhelming as it is. Give it time. Patience. Show Arthur he will not shy from it, he won’t ignore it, he won’t pretend it didn’t happen and he will not let it change how he interacts with him. And each time he does look at it, does touch it, studies the desperate weight of the wound on Arthur’s body - the cavity somehow seems less deep. It needs less material to pack inside it; soon it’ll need none. The surrounding skin, forever burnt in a great speckled star from the spread of the cartridge, seems a less angry shade of red. Hair has started to regrow where it can on Arthur’s shattered breast. His arm can lift a little higher than before, fingers a little more mobile. Every day brings a new reason to be optimistic.

For his own sanity too, it’s important to keep replacing the negative associations - the fear, the anger - and update them with positive change. Look at how much better it is. Look at how strong he is. Look how far he has come. He is alive. Healing.

Somehow he hopes the images that lurk in the darkest recesses of his memory will one day fade out of recollection, replaced by the undeniable presence of a healthy, recovered Arthur, who could not possibly be the same pallid figure he hauled from the Dakota river; that the night beneath Bard’s Crossing bridge will drift into disjointed impressions of what truly was, lost to time, painted over, and Charles will blissfully forget what Arthur looked like in the water with skin paler than the moonlight, forget the death knell beat of his heart. The smell.

For all he will know is a healed Arthur, whole and happy, with nothing but a scar to remind him it happened at all, and the present and past, the deep agony of Colm’s torture, will be meaningless in the face of that bright future.

He hopes, at least.

Charles doesn’t reply to him with words, instead works in silence for a few minutes more, covering Arthur’s chest with the bandage in methodical lines, crossing over his shoulder and down beneath his arm, painting a squat triangle of fabric across Arthur’s breast. It’s become almost automatic now, a mechanical ritual he doesn’t have to think about to get right, having done it so many times.

Once satisfied, he retrieves the safety pin, and carefully hooks it through the tight layers where the three angles cross, fastening the bandage end there, making sure the metal will take the strain and not bend or pull open. Gentle, he flattens his palm over the pin, and finds Arthur’s eyes, evasive above him. Only then does he speak again.

“Some scars take years to heal,” he says softly, thumb absently moving against Arthur’s chest. “Far beyond the time it takes for the flesh to repair.”

“Yeah,” Arthur mumbles, slumped in the chair.

“But you don’t have to heal alone.”

With a small sigh, Arthur nods. “I know.”

He turns his gaze to the window next to him, a long sash style with a low sill, and heavy panes to keep the mountain weather out. The sunlight dominates the view beyond, sparkling in the water wheel, slick in the cart tracks and hoof prints, mud glistening as if it’s topaz or agate, as if there’s still gold in the earth, and not a pungent slurry of river silt and horse manure. Beautiful, somehow, in its pastoral simplicity; a countryside world of distant forests and smoking chimneys, snorting Shire horses, granite cliffs like estate walls. Life in Strawberry seems pleasantly simple.

“Did you have a nightmare?” Charles’ eyes are genuine. Patient. They always are. 

Arthur sighs again, scrunches his nose as he shakes his head. “No, it weren’t that. Slept real easy, actually. Woke up good, I just…”

With a humourless huff, he gestures to the window, the blocks of light streaming from the world outside, motes of dust like snowflakes, swirling from shade to sun.

“I...caught a glimpse of myself, and got to thinkin’ maybe there ain’t no point going back. Look at me, I ain’t much use to no one,” he says finally, managing to prop his limp forearm on the narrow arm of his chair, palm up. He flexes his hand. The fingers curl, jerking inwards, struggling tendons standing stark in his wrist. “If this- Yesterday. Was some kinda test to see if I’m fixed enough for real work again, I failed pretty hard, didn’t I? Couldn’t shoot, could barely keep up. If you wasn’t there, I’da been cougar shit by now.”

Quiet, Charles sits back on his heels on the floor, watching his face. “I know Dutch ain’t happy w’me still bein’...hurt. Him’n the others been plannin’ God knows what in Rhodes, but- I ain’t no use if I can’t even shoot. If I can’t fight or patch my own wounds or...shave my own damn self.” 

He tries to curl his fingers again. Only the ring finger responds, jerking enough to pull the middle and little fingers with it, Arthur leaning forward slightly in the chair, bicep tensed just to manage the smallest movement. 

With a sharp exhale, he stops. Sits back. Swears. “Reckon he wishes he never bothered springin’ me from Colm at all, the state I’m in-”

“You're more to Dutch than just a gun, Arthur.”

“Am I?”

For a moment, they just look at each other. Nostrils flaring, Arthur huffs. “Sometimes I ain’t sure no more.” 

With his own sigh, Charles carefully shifts closer, and leans on Arthur’s knees, arm folded to rest on them. He places his hand atop Arthur’s on the chair arm. “No one should be defined by their ability,” he says softly, voice low and pleasingly plaintive. Like some sort of sacred chant. “Or disability. There is no less of you now than there was. No less value or worth in your life, no less skill, no less potential.” Chin resting on his folded arm, he looks up at Arthur, brown eyes warm. “No less beauty.”

Again, Arthur huffs, derisive, snorting through his nose. Yet he doesn’t look away for more than a moment, finding Charles’ face like shelter in a storm, safe in the sincerity in his expression. “Last week you went fishing with Javier. You brought home enough food for everyone.”

“That was Javier, that weren’t me. Next to him I can’t fish for worms.”

“Not a few days ago you sat with Miss Jackson all afternoon, darning socks with her after Miss Grimshaw made her cry. You listened to her. Kept trying to make her laugh.”

Arthur frowns. Darning is a one handed activity, he doesn’t need his left hand to stitch socks. Or listen to anyone, for that matter. And he can do nothing and still get laughed at, so that really isn’t much of an achievement. “Sure, but Susan’s been real hard on her of late…”

“You helped me and John repair that loose wagon wheel,” Charles says, his hair falling around his arm, tickling Arthur’s thigh. “You’ve been reading to Jack with Hosea. You always help Lenny and Kieran with the horses even when you have a bad night.”

“Yeah, yeah, alright, I get it,” Arthur mumbles, looking down at his lap. “I’m a goddamn saint. Make sure it says so on my gravestone.”

“You do more than enough just waking every day. You _are_ more than enough.”

He squeezes Arthur’s fingers, then drops his hand away, tucking it beneath his chin with his other hand. His hair falls from behind his ear. “Brush my hair back,” he says.

Arthur looks down at him like he’s asked him to jump out of the window. “I can’t.”

“You can.”

“You’ll get your eye poked out,” Arthur protests, glancing at his lame hand. “It jerks itself about, I can’t move it nice and gentle-like.”

“Don’t care, try anyway.”

With a toddler-worthy pout, Arthur scowls at him, nose wrinkled like he’s shovelling shit. “Fine,” he snaps, and wrangles his muscles into working, bicep tensing, struggling to carry the weight of his own arm. “Stubborn sumbitch you are, you know that? Watch yourself get smacked.”

Charles just raises his eyebrows. Arthur grits his teeth.

It’s difficult. Any movement is difficult. The bandages strain against the safety pin, tight around his chest, his whole torso having to engage to make up for the deficiency in his shoulder, lumbering with the limb on the end like it’s a tree branch, severed in a storm and yet still just barely connected to the tree. 

Careful, Arthur manages to shift his hand from the chair arm, stilted, a puppet’s wooden movement, dangling oddly as if held by a string, and moves it toward Charles’ head, propped snugly on his own knees. Charles looks up at him - not at the encroaching hand, the likely slap he’s about to receive, or finger poked accidentally into his eye. He simply looks at Arthur, and there’s such a sense of trust in his expression that Arthur almost forgets the tremors in his fingers, the straining ache in his shoulder, and touches Charles’ temple before he realises what he’s doing.

Slow, the backs of his fingers brush Charles’ skin, curled together to lessen the shaking. His wrist jerks, but he manages to control it, stroking clumsily over Charles’ hairline above his ear, the tail end of his eyebrow, a small white scar that’s visible above. With a soft sigh, Charles shuts his eyes, and Arthur is left staring at his resting face, heat starting to rise in his own cheeks, struck by how deeply he is _trusted_. How comforted Charles is by just the weak movement of his unworthy fingers, the inelegant touch of his hand.

Careful not to let his knuckles bump into Charles’ cheek, Arthur stiffly pushes his hair back, falling through his motionless fingers like strands of silk that he can only just feel, pooling behind Charles’ ear, swept from his face. Only then does Charles open his eyes, looking up at him from his folded arms.

Arthur manages the smallest smile, just a quirk of his lips. His cheeks are pink. He lets his hand come to rest on his thigh, a few inches from Charles’ arm. “A few weeks ago, you could barely move it at all,” Charles says, picking his head up, hair staying behind his ear as it tumbles around his shoulders.

“Maybe...it just needs the right motivation,” Arthur replies, huffing, the tiniest attempt at humour.

“You’re healing. Doesn’t matter how long it takes, or who has an opinion about it. It’ll come. We can practise as much as you want. And it’ll come.”

“Yeah,” Arthur says, without the sharp edge of before, sighing, again looking out of the window for a moment before he finds more words to speak. “Sorry. Don’t mean to snap like that, just…frustrated.”

“You’re a stubborn son-of-a-bitch too, y’know,” Charles says, fond.

“I know,” Arthur replies, and huffs a weak chuckle. “Everything’s easier when… When you’re around.”

“I’m not going anywhere.”

“Even thinkin’ seems easier. Shit seems clear. Hopeful. Like I ain’t...broke beyond repair.”

Tilting his head slightly, Charles looks up at him with the softest expression, warm like something gilded, golden and honeyed. The white lines in his skin are hairline cracks, fractures, slightly raised from his cheek and jaw like fork lightning against an opaque sky, all the more visible with the sunlight pouring in through the adjacent window. Another scar splits his eyebrow, and a dark blemish marrs the skin beneath his eye socket, thin but deep.

Fingers unfurling from his thigh, Arthur again moves his hand to Charles’ face, and pauses there, waiting out the tremors in his wrist, the tiny jolts that jerk each finger in repetitive rhythm, pulled as if plucking invisible strings. They subside, concentration knotting his eyebrows, and he gingerly touches the scarring across the side of Charles’ face, pressing the backs of his fingers to his cheek. His skin prickles, enough that he can feel it, stubble growing in a black shadow around his mouth, up to his cheekbones, rough coating to lined, weathered, yet still soft skin. 

Still watching him, Charles turns his head up, and Arthur’s fingers fall to brush his mouth, trembling as if cold, the cracked skin of his knuckles tracing the swell of his lips, staring like he’d forgotten what it felt like to touch him at all. Charles kisses his shy fingers, watches Arthur’s own lips part above him, exhaling his breath.

“You are far more than the damage done to you,” Charles says, Arthur’s hand remaining as still as possible, shivering against his cheek.

For a long moment, Arthur is silent. A wagon trundles across the bridge through Strawberry, wheels clattering over the slats above the creek, hooves loud. The newspaper seller shouts his trade from the bottom of the hill, dogs bark, children laugh, and townsfolk call greetings to each other as they go about another day in West Elizabeth, another hot summer morning, with woodpeckers in the pine trees, and red squirrels the only colour amongst the undergrowth of brown and green.

When Charles speaks, every word is far easier to believe.

“You’n those pretty words,” Arthur says, mouth turned up at the corner. He lets his hand drop, exhaling the tension in his chest. “Gonna be the death of me.”

“Will you believe them before that?”

Arthur chuckles, wry, shaking his head. “Keep it up and I just might.”

“Y’know,” Charles says, resting his chin on his folded arms, chest leant into Arthur’s legs. “Reckon I say more words with you in five minutes than I do with everyone else put together.”

Chuckling again, Arthur shrugs his right shoulder. “‘Cause of my natural charm and eloquence?”

“Sure. That or... You just don’t smell as bad as Uncle.”

Snorting, Arthur laughs. And Charles smiles ever so slightly from where he sits, the sunlight glinting off the safety pin on Arthur’s chest.

“I...I'm sorry,” Arthur mumbles, his laughter fading, head bowed for a moment. “Didn't mean to make a fuss, get you up like that. You wanna- Maybe.” He huffs, pulling at his lip with his teeth.

“Come back to bed with me,” he says eventually, looking tentatively down to him, the expression on his face settling to an unsteady smile. As if sure Charles will decline.

Instead Charles clambers upright, propping a hand on Arthur’s knee as he stands. He’s still naked, and catches the flushed rush of surprise as Arthur notices that particular fact, having apparently forgotten. “Been waiting for you to ask,” he says, ignoring the creaking of his stiff knees, offering Arthur his hand.

Staring at it for a moment, Arthur seems to have to kick his mind back into coherency, eyes ricocheting from Charles’ groin up to his face. He blinks. Then takes Charles’ hand, and stands in one jolting movement, stumbling forward into his space and kissing him hard. The knotted sleeves of his union suit dig into Charles’ belly, their hands sandwiched between them momentarily before Arthur moves to wrap his arm around his neck, clutching at his hair, leaning for a deeper angle, pressed against Charles’ bare chest.

“Arthur-” Charles breathes, gasps, both arms snug around Arthur’s back, unable to help but draw him closer, keep him there, flush together.

Immediate, Arthur breaks the kiss, but an inch between their lips, fear flitting over his face like a snow flurry. “I- I’m sorry, I didn’t- Ask or nothin’, I just jumped-”

“No, it’s not…”

With a tiny noise, a huff and a grunt at once, Charles kisses him in return, just as eager as Arthur had been. “Just- I should-” He snatches at Arthur’s mouth, roughly grasping the back of his neck, before again stopping himself. “Let me piss first,” he says hurriedly, breathing hard, having to drag himself away from kissing him. “I just woke up, give me two seconds.”

Arthur blinks at him. Then he laughs. “_Fine_,” he says, and steps back, hand falling from Charles’ hair. “I’ll allow it.”

Reluctantly stepping away, Charles huffs his amusement, and crosses the room to the washstand while Arthur gets back into bed, sitting against their sleep-crumpled pillows. He folds his legs as he waits, touches the depression where Charles had slept, hand on the sheet. 

The ache in his lower back twinges, but again it isn’t a negative sensation, quite unlike the soreness of his shoulder, wrapped firmly in its new dressing. Even the shallow scratches across his forearm are more painful than the heaviness in his spine, and much sharper. Pointed. Compared to the pain he carries every day now, aching muscles in his back are nothing to worry about.

Confidently naked and larger than any one piece of furniture in the room except the bed, Charles commands attention as he reappears in Arthur’s peripheral vision a moment later, walking the room’s width in a few strides, with the striking air of someone regal, some kind of earthly god. A king. Arthur only glances as he moves back to the bed, and digs his teeth into his lower lip, heat prickling in his cheeks.

The bed dips. Charles sits down opposite him. He tosses his hair behind his head, baring his wide collarbones, and again Arthur has to remember to breathe, heavier than before. With his index finger, Charles touches Arthur’s clothed thigh, and runs his fingernail upwards, following the knitted weave of his union suit.

Unfurling his legs, Arthur shifts, tilting his chin with an audible huff. He looks from Charles’ finger up to his face, and raises an eyebrow - a smouldering gaze if there ever was one. Or an attempt at least.

Charles chuckles. “You look like you want to eat me,” he says, and crowds Arthur against the pillow, lounging gracefully on his front, Arthur’s legs left to fall either side of him. 

“Carry on the way you are and I just might.”

“I’m offending you?” Charles asks, barely concealing his smirk as he leans into Arthur’s lap.

His hair falls loose from his shoulders, ends brushing the sleeves of the union suit where they sit against Arthur’s belly. With another low noise, Arthur touches his cheek, unable to help himself. “At this rate we ain’t never gonna leave this room.”

Another rumbling chuckle. His breath is warm on Arthur’s hand.

“If last night was anythin’ to go by, we’re gonna be stuck here, shoalin’ around in our unmentionables-”

“I’m enjoying it.”

“-Spoonin’ on each other like a couple possums in a tow sack.”

Again Charles laughs. He leans into him, feeling Arthur’s hand stroke through his hair and fall away. “Well if that’s how you see it.”

“Both of us is gonna starve to death on account we can’t keep our hands off each other for five minutes to use the necessaries or check the horses or-” Arthur exhales, sharp, Charles’ lips having made contact with his sternum. He kisses there, long strokes of his tongue creeping lower down Arthur’s chest. “-Get some breakfast that…that don’t...”

“Breakfast?” Charles asks, more like a purr, offensively low.

He looks up when he reaches Arthur’s belly, eyes wide and innocent as his lips uncover his teeth to nip above his navel. Arthur’s knees crumple to either side of him, limp on the bed. Heat pools in his lap. The pillow behind his back seems to swallow him, reclining him further to Charles’ advance, his wandering kisses. He growls as he breathes. “Breakfast that ain’t… Don’t...consist- Consist of all the sugar you’re packin’ into that fat ass of yours- Which I’d happily chew on if asked, but-”

With a blunt bark, Charles laughs. Grin wide, he tips his head away from Arthur’s stomach, and rests momentarily on his thigh, laughing, wrapping his arms around his seated hips. Breathless, Arthur joins in, chuckling despite himself, and brushes Charles’ hair away from his face, letting him see his smile, bright next to the red of his underwear.

“We’ll never make it back,” he says, fingers lingering on Charles’ rounded cheek, tracing his scars again. “Too busy makin’ all kinda nobody’s business like we ain’t old men. Dutch’ll send Javier out to find us.”

“Or John,” Charles adds, voice darkly amused.

“Make him wish he’d got himself ate up in the mountains. Or blinded.”

“Let them. Why did we come all the way out here if not to…”

“...Play backgammon?” Arthur asks, helpfully.

Charles snorts and laughs again. “_Enjoy_,” he says simply, gazing up at Arthur from his thigh. “However we want.”

With a soft grunt, he picks himself up, and sits in Arthur’s open lap, chest to chest. Gentle, he lets his forehead rest against Arthur’s, and kisses his lips, just for a second. “Wouldn’t mind spending the entire day in bed with you, if you want,” he says softly, voice still low. “Catch up on sleep.”

“We ain’t gonna get much rest if you keep walkin’ around with your Sunday face on show.”

“Don’t mind that either.”

Arthur exhales, and tips his head back against the wall behind the bed. Hands dropping, he takes in the breadth of Charles’ naked hips, one hand on each, though only the right hand can reliably move, stroking gently at the layer of fat that overhangs Charles’ thighs. Every part of him is both soft and strong, heavy in his lap, so confident in his own body that it’s intoxicating. He is everything beautiful a man can be.

There’s nothing Arthur wants more than to spend infinite time with him. Doing exactly nothing. Even the thought of it sounds like fantasy. So much that has happened between them still seems completely impossible, even though Arthur has lived through it. Has kissed Charles, has slept beside him, has told him how deeply he feels for him. Much of him still struggles to believe it’s real at all. A moment to themselves after everything the summer has already thrown at them would do them both good. That was the thinking behind the trip to Strawberry. But a moment of what? Without the structure of daily gang life providing his options for him, Arthur struggles to know what exactly it is he should be doing. Let alone with a naked Charles in his lap.

To spend time is to spend money. So Dutch says. To waste time is… 

Arthur shuts his eyes.

“Don’t mind...heading back sooner, if you want that instead,” Charles says, dropping his gaze as he adjusts his position to a more comfortable one, moving to lounge against Arthur’s chest, curled up to his side like a wolf that thinks it’s a lap dog, draped over Arthur’s legs. He looks up at him, genuine, and just the knowledge that Charles would absolutely abandon their trip and head back if Arthur wanted to - no questions asked, no impatience, no guilt - is enough that for a wild moment Arthur wants to cry.

“No, ‘course not,” he says, too quick to go unnoticed, frown appearing as he tries to find Charles’ eyes again. “I don’t wanna go nowhere.”

Hand falling on Charles’ cheek, Arthur leans forward to kiss him, just slightly too hasty to be completely steady, anxiety creeping into his expression. Fear he’s given the wrong impression. “I’d stay here with you forever, you fool,” he mumbles, unable to hold Charles’ gaze for too long as he speaks, sure he’s venturing too close to something he isn’t sure how to say aloud. Some confession or other. 

“Lock the door, forget we ain’t long lost pals from California or wherever the fuck. Reckon I just...ain’t used to havin’ time to...do nothin’, y’know? Or do things I wanna do.”

“What do you wanna do?” Charles asks, genuine.

“I…don't know,” Arthur says simply.

He rests his hand back where it was on Charles’ hip, and squeezes, admiring the softness of flesh in his palm as he rests against the pillow, tracing the raised edges of stretch marks and old scars, thinking. “I...wanna locate us some kinda breakfast,” he says finally, with a nod as if to convince himself. “Some real food, not just provisions. Preferably with syrup.”

The curve of Charles’ back is pronounced, sweeping from his wide ribs to his hips, and Arthur follows the arch of his spine with his hand, feeling him press closer in response. His belly is heavy on Arthur’s clothed hip, and he wants nothing but to undress again just to feel Charles’ skin on his, feel him between his legs, his muscle, his weight. “And then... I kinda...wanna fool around some more.”

“Oh?”

“Uh huh,” Arthur says, unable to resist squeezing a handful of Charles’ hip, hand lingering in the dip just above his ass. “Wanna...fool around like we’re half our age, ‘til the feller downstairs clears us out on account the floorboards are rattlin’ somethin’ awful.”

Charles hums his amusement, voice low, breath hot on Arthur’s bare chest. His hand rests just below the bandaging, fingers brushing the healed bullet graze on his side. “I like that idea.”

“Good ‘cause after I bring said breakfast back here, the ‘fooling around’ part of the plan kinda relies heavily on your participation. For the rest of the day.”

“That so?”

The fingers on Charles’ back start to creep downwards again, lazily walking the path of his spine. “Well, I’m thinkin’ we gotta make the most of this high-filutin’ bed we got ourselves. Test it out, y’know,” Arthur says, stifling his lopsided smirk, free hand brushing the sheets they’re lying on, trying to prop his voice into something that sounds confident. That sounds like he knows what he’s doing. “And here you are, naked as a shaved bear-”

“You say the most romantic things.”

“You can’t go waltzin’ round town all unshucked like that. You could poke someone’s eye out. Or catch some kinda chill.”

“It's August.”

“Scare the Sam Hill outta some old woman buyin’ her groceries. These’re simple mountain folk; feller as fine as you’d cause apoplexy in the surest citizen. It’s a wonder poor Winton Holmes didn’t shoot his shot for you, Lord rest his penniless soul.”

Charles is snickering, pressing his smile to Arthur’s bare chest. “At any rate,” Arthur says, wrapping his arm around Charles’ back, delighting in how he shifts closer, as though desperate to leave no space between them whatsoever. “Best I keep you to myself today.”

“Sure.”

“Just in case. Them shirts you wear deserve a rest’n all, clingin’ round all 800 pounds of you all day. Think of them poor buttons.”

“You’re a true gentleman, Mister Morgan.”

Arthur scoffs, fingers finding Charles’ hair, playing absently with the ends around his shoulder blades. “You wouldn’t be sweet on me if I was.”

Looking up at him from his chest, Charles just huffs his understated laughter. “True enough.”

They lie together for a while longer, Charles’ eyes shut as he rests on Arthur’s chest, wrapped around him like a blanket. Breakfast or not, he truly wouldn’t mind spending the day in bed with Arthur, even if they do just catch up on some sleep. Time spent together is gift enough to him, no matter what they do, or what they don’t. Yet he knows how the gang’s needs weigh on Arthur, even a state and a half away, and he suspects Dutch has never been very amenable towards the idea of ‘downtime’. Or downtime that isn’t on his terms at least, convinced a moment in which money isn’t made is a moment wasted.

Bullshit. It is valuable to go off from the laid path, to wander and ramble and dream. To have interest in the world and pursue its many freedoms, is freedom in itself. Time enjoyed, time empty, time together, time adrift, is never time wasted, in Charles’ view.

“Not that I mind,” Charles mumbles, eyes closed, cheek pressed to Arthur’s chest. “But your breakfast will be lunch before long.”

With a chuckle, Arthur sits up, and Charles shifts to his side, replacing his pillow with the actual pillow beneath his head. “I’m goin’, I’m going,” he says, stretching his good arm. “Lemme just...find some pants.”

“Shame,” Charles says, smirking as Arthur gets up, locating his jeans folded with his shirt. “Ought to give your jeans a rest too.”

A dry snort comes from the vague vicinity of the washstand. The rustle of fabric as Arthur dresses himself, drags a comb through his hair. “You can undress me again soon as I get back, alright?”

“Mmm,” Charles hums, muffled by the pillow, eyes still steadfastly shut. “Then don’t be long.”

Arthur’s lips appear on his a moment later, hand touching his cheek. They share the kiss, lazy, Charles instinctively clinging to Arthur’s collar, fingers curling in the cotton of his shirt until he reluctantly pulls away. “I’ll be back in a hot second. Knowin’ I got you waitin’ for me.”

“Good,” Charles says, quiet, finally opening his eyes to watch him. “Maybe I’ll forgive you for making me wake up alone this morning.”

Arthur chuckles, smoothing his shirt collar as he locates his hat, placing it firmly on his head, pulling the brim down. “I’ll make it up to you,” he says, letting his voice slink deeper, lips pulled at the corner by his smirk.

Charles smiles, teeth briefly pulling at his lower lip. “I’ll hold you to that.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> nearly there! thank you so much for reading and commenting. you guys make my day every day ♥
> 
> also an apology, as usual, for how long it takes me to edit and upload lately. i received a comment on the last chapter that...i can't read, as it's in russian, but another commenter let me know it wasn't positive feedback. thanks to the other commenter, i'm pretty sure it's to do with how slow i am with writing and updating. so i just wanted to say i know i am, and i'm sorry. i don't want to go into detail, but my living situation isn't positive. i manage to find about half an hour to write when everyone else in the house is in bed.
> 
> the past few months have been harder than usual. my mum was diagnosed with cancer. she had surgery a few weeks ago but it's spread already. she starts chemotherapy this week. as a household we have no income at all due to the pandemic, and we won't until possibly the start of next year.
> 
> i'm still writing because i want to share this story. because it keeps me sane. because it means the world to me that i can even wrangle two words together for these characters after many years being unable to write at all. so...i know i'm slow, and i'm so grateful for all of you still reading and taking time to comment, telling me not to worry and that updates are 'worth the wait'. thank you, every one of you. and please know, i'm trying my best.
> 
> p.s. according to [jonathon green](jonathongreen.co.uk), a lexicographer and author of 'Green's Dictionary of Slang', (follow him on twitter [@MisterSlang](twitter.com/misterslang)!) the use of '[to play] backgammon' as a euphemism for anal sex dates all the way back to 1640!! he created several 'slang timelines' specifically for slang use through the ages, including several relating to sex and sexuality which are 1. hilarious, but 2. super interesting. he collated all the timelines on a tumblr page, so [here's a link to the tumblr page's archive](https://thetimelinesofslang.tumblr.com/archive) where you can see all of them! i love words 😊


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “If I asked you somethin’, hypothetical-like,” he says to the sky, thick rasp in his voice, cigarette end glowing in the motionless air. “Would you tell me the truth, even if...the truth might not be what I wanna hear?”

_(O I willingly stake all for you,  
O let me be lost if it must be so!  
O you and I! what is it to us what the rest do or think?  
What is all else to us? only that we enjoy each other and exhaust  
each other if it must be so;)_

“Charles?”

“Arthur.”

A murmur of brushed fabric. Arthur crosses his legs, spurless heels scuffing the dirt. Another plume of grey smoke drifts upward; not from their campfire. Since they left West Elizabeth that morning, Arthur’s fingers have barely spent ten minutes without a cigarette between them. They jitter imperceptibly. He takes a new drag. “Can I...ask you somethin’?”

Beside him, Charles lies on the same spread blanket, bedrolls placed together to create one makeshift mattress, a bare layer of material between them and the scrubby ground. Their hands are joined in the space between their hips. “Of course,” Charles says, breathing the cigarette smoke, the campfire glow, night air just warm enough to be comfortable. He squeezes the still hand in his. “Anything.”

Arthur huffs, a humourless sort of grunt. “That’s- Yeah. I...ain’t sure.”

“Ain’t sure you should ask, or what I’ll answer?”

Another rustle. Arthur turns his head to the side. His expression is lit from the fire warming the soles of their boots, skin highlighted in translucent red around his nose, the peaks of his cheekbones, the slight wetness on his lips as he takes a new drag of his cigarette. He turns away without replying, and stares upwards again.

The stars are bright, pin-sharp above them. Tiny holes in the ceiling of the universe, trembling with twinkling light, like the distant glow of a far off city, windows white and welcoming. Or the great dome of a celestial cathedral, glittering from pole to pole.

“If I asked you somethin’, hypothetical-like,” he says to the sky, thick rasp in his voice, cigarette end glowing in the motionless air. “Would you tell me the truth, even if...the truth might not be what I wanna hear?”

The stars stare stoically back down at him. Whatever wisdom they might have given those that first looked up, Arthur finds it’s lost on the likes of him. Their ceaseless silence is comforting, somehow, but no great epiphanies or understanding dawns as he watches them, ticking dutifully past in precise rhythm. They are the notches plucked into the reel of a music box, struck by the mesas and mountains and redwoods as the reaching Earth barrels through their cyclical expanse, a nightly lullaby sung to soothe until a new day comes.

“If you knew it was gonna hurt me to know…” Charles’ hand remains steady by their sides, keeping his own from trembling too hard. He sighs, and swallows. “Would you still tell me the truth?”

A beat of time passes, but no more. “I wouldn’t lie to you,” Charles says, inclining his head enough to see Arthur’s profile, the pale stars reflected in infinity within his eyes. “Never.”

Arthur meets his gaze. The fire crackles, casting just enough light on their small campsite to see each other’s faces, shapes drifting in shadow. Orange pools in Arthur’s cheeks, oozing upward with the slight movement of his lips, pulled into the vague impression of a smile, if a smile could still be called such at its most exhausted. Most solemn. 

It’s there, though. Relief.

“I wouldn’t want to hurt you,” Charles murmurs, light dancing as his own mouth moves, features lit from below. “But you ask for the truth, I’ll give it.”

“Even if it hurt _you_ in tellin’ it, knowin’ it was gonna hurt me?”

“Always.”

The light shifts again. Arthur stares upwards.

His cigarette fast devours itself, crumbling to glinting ash, breathed in slow clouds. They’re the only movement in the late sky, the only disturbance in an endless indigo ocean, fleeting grey waves rippling across the wash of calm, opulent night. It’s a great cloak thrown above the plains, studded with diamonds, trimmed in diaphanous blue where the last embers of the sleeping sun still bound around the Earth’s curvature, a shade or two shy of the rest of the fabric, summer’s twilight clinging to the horizon before midnight comes.

Comforted. Is how Charles feels when he looks at the stars. Insignificant and boundless. Glorious and humble. He could rest forever beneath such a sky. “Whatever’s on your mind,” he says, as quiet as the grass is, as though the world might wake if he speaks too loudly. His head tilts, and he watches Arthur. “My answers are yours.”

Arthur throws the paper stub of his cigarette towards their fire. The low flames reclaim their own amongst the prairie brush, and flicker in lazy acceptance, content to kiss the kindling that keeps them burning long after they were needed to cook. Empty fingers clench instead around his belt buckle. He inhales.

“When I got taken...” His voice is desperately quiet. “Before.” Soft, like a patter of rain visible in some distant cloud, colour smudged as if the brush was knocked from the artist’s hand mid-stroke.

He doesn’t speak again for a long moment.

Beyond their boots, the fire spits and smoulders. A lone fox wails on the south wind, chasing rabbits through the swales, junegrass and bluestem whispering in the draft from the campfire. There are falcons nesting in the cliffs some way to the east, and though the night is quiet, it doesn’t feel empty, rich with muted colour and sound, the sleeping heartbeat of the wide Earth.

Arthur exhales. He can feel Charles’ hand in his.

“Dutch wasn’t comin’ for me,” he says.

The night is silent then. It waits.

“Was he?”

Charles stares upwards. His teeth clench around the breath he holds. Has held for many weeks. The heart in his chest braces for impact, squeezed tight and painful.

After a second that lasts hours, he lets it go. “No,” he answers.

Chin tipped further back, eyes momentarily closed, Arthur loses his own breath as if it has fallen from the grasp of his lungs, tumbling away in a clattering rush between the gaps in his rib cage.

“Oh,” he says, hauntingly quiet, like a voice heard through walls. A voice at a bedside vigil. “He...told me he was. Asked him straight.”

Then, heavier, drowning in his chest cavity like there are cinder blocks chained to his lowest ribs, “He lied to me.”

“Yes.”

Another short exhale, and Arthur falls silent, staring unseeingly up at the night above them. His hand stays still, numb to Charles’ gentle thumb, stroking over his to the insistent rhythm of his own heartbeat in a lame attempt at resuscitation, the repetitive stroking of a runt pup’s unmoving chest, desperate to hear it breathe.

A part of him had known. A black, growing thing, festering on hindsight and nightmares of speculation, sprawling out around his torso like ivy suffocates a house, eats its way into the mortar and brick. Arthur is sure he’s been carrying the doubt within himself since he first regained consciousness, formless enough that he’d been able to ignore it, file it away with the itemised list of other anxieties that follow him around like flies, push it down hard behind his breastbone, crumbling plaster papered over a leak as if it could stop the force of an ever-rising tide.

The story hadn’t made sense. The water rose. The cracks burst.

His memory still shaky, intangible - glimpsed in nightmares and unconscious terrors he can’t corroborate nor believe - the only accounts he has of what had happened those weeks ago are unreliable at best, but it had become obvious Dutch’s particular retelling of the tale was read from a vastly different book to all the others. What pieces he’d been given hadn’t fit together into anything resembling the picture Dutch had described. Which could only mean he really is incredibly bad at jigsaw puzzles, or, less pleasant, the picture he’d been told to recreate was wrong.

Arthur wouldn’t call himself a smart man, but he isn’t that much of a fool.

Charles squeezes his hand. He breathes again.

The truth doesn’t feel as shocking as he’d feared. Perhaps in his own internal wondering, he’d come to accept what he didn’t want to believe. Perhaps he has done the same for several Dutch-related doubts lately. Perhaps his unconscious mind knows far more than it is willing to admit to the conscious, and all he really needed was the confirmation.

“You came for me,” Arthur says, turning his head to his left, Charles’ profile as dark and beautiful as the distant cliffs of the Heartlands, rolling silhouettes against the counterpane of stars. “On your own.”

“Yes,” Charles answers again, the light clinging along the length of his nose, red in the bow between septum and lip. “Dutch...lied to everyone. Told us you were running an errand. You would return soon.”

“I never seen him after...seein’ Colm, I- Don't think I did.”

“You didn’t. I volunteered to search. He...didn’t believe there was cause. I disagreed, and left alone.”

“Why’d he lie?” Arthur asks, directing his question to the sky.

With no cigarette to occupy his fingers, he starts to pick the stitching of his belt, easily accessible to his hand, prying at the leather edges with his thumbnail. “What’s the point in that?” Minute, he shakes his head, the fabric of their bedroll mattress rustling with the movement of his hair. “Why bother tellin’ you I’d gone off on my own when he knew it weren’t true?”

With a soft breath, Charles can only listen, head inclined just enough to watch Arthur beside him, to see his expression tangle and snag like bracken snatching at the fleece of a stray sheep. It pulls in long wisps, curling Arthur’s lip as timid acceptance inevitably turns to anger, thumbnail digging at the row of saddle stitches that edge his belt. He has his own theory as to how such a monumental failure of common sense could occur in Dutch’s mind, namely that he is far less clever and far more selfish than Arthur has been led to believe, but he doesn’t think Arthur is currently looking for explanations. Fire does not care for a reason to burn. Sometimes, anger just needs to be felt.

“You reckon _Micah_ thought it up?” Arthur asks, suddenly snapping, eyes glancing to meet Charles’ before they flit away again, chasing emotions, nipping at their heels. His voice is blunt-ended. “Bet he’d be pissing laughin’ if I had to drag my ass back without them, waitin’ out here sunburnt to Hell for him and Dutch when they was already home. Toastin’ their successful _peacemaking_.”

Not a sheep - a wolf. Teeth bared, catching the light of their fire. “Stupid dumb _moron_ Arthur, ain’t it hilarious, we left him behind. Bet they got a proper joke out of it, tellin’ y’all I was just bein’... What? What they say?” He gestures with his hand, throwing it up. His eyes search the sky, a glancing bullet gouging through sheet metal, accusing each and every meekly twinkling star. “Lazy? Thick as pig shit? Dumb as bricks, can’t tell when I’m bein’ taken for a fool? What was the _fucking_ point?” 

To their left, grazing on a patch of summer grass amongst the prickly pear and feathered sedge, Taima lifts her head. She snorts. Charles can see her flicking tail in his peripheral vision, a brown-black streak of fire lit movement, her ears up.

“In all the goddamn years I known him…” Arthur says, and then laughs, a grating sort of bark, the sound of rust on an old iron hinge, cloying and sharp. It sounds like being bludgeoned.

Charles’ hand is suddenly wrenched empty. Arthur sits up, too fast to not be painful, his teeth bright in the firelight. “Christ- More’n twenty years! Have I ever skipped out on a meeting or- Or _anythin’_ that important? Have I ever not been where I said I was gonna be?”

The pain of moving coats his voice, thick like lacquer. It twists his face, running with his anger like blood in water, fire-bright, blooming outward. He hulks against the fire in black silhouette. “Would he have _ever_ come for me?” he snaps, hand gesturing, demanding. “Huh?”

Knees up, he teeters on his haunches, the rips in his jeans gaping open to reveal patches of his thighs, burst from the denim like a split peach. He scuffs his heels through the dirt. With nothing to hold, his left thumb finds the scabbed scratches on his other arm, and he picks them, compulsively digs at the dry edges torn into his skin by the cougar’s claws.

Silent, Charles sits up beside him, his own pain heavy in his expression, like the sky itself is pressing down on his brow. His hands clench around nothing.

“If you hadn’t...” Arthur says, and shakes his head, words barbed like the teeth of a saw blade, trying to bite through steel. A wrenching, clawing sound, a mockery of his own voice. “If you hadn’t come for me- Would he have ever even realised? Thought it a _mite_ bit strange I disappeared off the face of the fuckin’ Earth? Would it’ve taken Colm himself dumpin’ my rotten corpse outside his goddamn tent for him to realise I was gone _at all_?”

Breathing hard, Arthur snarls his breath, nostrils flared. “Goddamnit,” he snaps, unsteady. His voice pitches. He rocks with his labouring chest. “Colm- He was _waiting, _Charles. Waitin’ for Dutch to come- Come for _me_, and he wasn’t- He wasn’t ever-” 

Thumbnail slipping, Arthur digs beneath a scab. He inhales through his teeth, choked in his throat. His eyes flicker to Charles, swimming, and then back to his arm, blinking so as not to drown. “I was bait,” he manages, meagre, spitting like the words are venom, wet on his lips. “_Bait_. I don’t remember much but I sure know that. I was just _bait_ for him, and he- Didn’t even- _Goddamnit_.”

With another choking breath, he swallows the rest of his voice.

The fire flickers.

Arthur hunches forward. Huddled around his own knees. With an unsteady hiss, he exhales, harsh and sloshing like a boiling kettle, and his right hand comes up to tangle in his own hair, holding his head as if to keep it together, keep the seams of himself from bursting beneath the weight, a log dam against the torrent of memory, sloshing through cracks so optimistically repaired. The scratches on his arm sting in the air, and slowly start to bleed, pinpricks of red glinting in the fire light.

For what seems like an age, Charles can only sit with him in silence. Guilt gnaws at him, making him small against Arthur’s anger, folding him inwards despite how he longs to reach out. To hold him in his arms and smother his smouldering pain, starve the greed of Dutch’s conditional affection into nothing, like blanketing a fire, excise his spectre from Arthur’s sense of self and erase even the memory of him, the patterns that plaster the walls Arthur shelters within.

Sometimes Charles wonders whether tearing down the paper, the posters, the propaganda, might bring the entire structure of Arthur’s being down with it.

Gentle, Charles shifts. Their bedrolls bunch beneath him. He crosses his legs, and watches the shaking of Arthur’s shoulders, counts the gradual rallentando of his breathing, lingering close enough in his periphery to be felt yet never crowd him, unwilling to intrude on such a deep and private anguish without Arthur’s consent. The fire cracks and pops in the silence, and with a heavy snort, Taima goes back to her tuft of grass, satisfied the moment is over, looking out for Belle as she dozes a few feet away.

It’s a quiet night. The same fox shrieks in the valley to the south, hunting the length of Dewberry Creek from the dust of the banks, and a coyote pack yips and laughs across the plains to the east, chasing whatever will run, scattered over the hills of Emerald Ranch. The waterfowl had been vocal earlier in the evening, a cacophony of colour and noise, congregating across the Heartlands floodplain, still sodden with pockets of precious water run off from the mountains to the north, an oasis within the dry prairie surrounding, the uplands a swathe of golden dust from Valentine to Flat Iron Lake.

As midnight nears, the only regular calls are distant owls, the only movement the occasional shrew or scurrying mouse, rustling through the dense grass and sedge to take refuge from the sharp-eyed hunters, tangled shrubbery in clumps like islands amongst the scrubland.

It’s late. The moon is almost full, and lagging low on the endless waves of night as if tired herself, rocked to calm rest in the clear ink wash.

Despite what both of them want, this will surely be the last night they spend alone together for a while. It sits heavily between them. An unspoken melancholy.

With a fragile sigh, and more certain he won’t be pushed away, Charles shifts even closer on their blanket bed. “Arthur,” he murmurs, a beacon in the dark, the only voice that matters. “Take my hand.”

No answer comes. No sign that Arthur can hear him at all.

Charles touches the back of Arthur’s wrist, hesitant, as slow as he can until he’s sure the touch isn’t unwelcome, sure that Arthur won’t bolt. “Please.”

Gentle, as if holding the most delicate glass, he pries Arthur’s hand from his own hair, and folds their fingers together, giving them a soft squeeze. An anchor to hold him.

Arthur’s eyes flick up. The fire light dances within them, glassy, like moonlight on water.

“I’ve got you,” Charles whispers, brushing the mussed front of Arthur’s hair with his free hand, stroking it flat once more. “Still with me?”

Arthur breathes. Nods. “Always,” he mumbles, wretchedly quiet, and shuts his eyes as Charles rests their foreheads together, taking another while just to exist in the space between thought, blank, washed clean in Charles’ touch.

Eventually, Arthur’s other hand comes to rest in Charles’, trembling minutely, and they sit facing each other on their simple bed, fingers folded in eight pairs while the shaking slows, Charles’ thumbs rubbing in steady rhythm.

“I’m sorry,” Charles says, the tips of their noses brushing as he moves, pulling back just enough to be able to see Arthur’s expression. Despite the darkness, only lit on one side by the fire, his weary acceptance is not difficult to read.

“Ain’t done nothin’ to be sorry for,” Arthur answers, a heavy sediment of gravel in his voice. “Only ever do good by me.”

“I’m sorry you’re hurting.”

With a sigh, Arthur sits back, and again looks up at the stars. As if reassurance might be found there in the twinkling of infinite distances, in the lines of constellations, the depths beyond Aquila’s wings and Draco’s twisting tail, a Great Bear and his solitary cub, curled together in the endless sky.

“Just...feel like a fool,” he says, blinking away his misery like it’s an overcoat he can hang in a closet. He shrugs his good shoulder, flexes his fingers against Charles’. “More’n usual. You got another smoke?”

“Mhm.”

Charles unfolds a cigarette packet from the short sleeve of his undershirt. There are a scant few left. On the ride across New Hanover, up through the verdant Dakota valley, Arthur had barely breathed a lungful of air that wasn’t thick with tobacco, glad to have the ease and accessibility of a proper packet to settle his nerves, lest he have to start rolling his own. He’d enjoyed the card that came with the pack too - a delicate illustration of a leopard-spotted Appaloosa. To add to his collection. Apparently they’re worth something when the set is complete, but Charles reckons he likes the pictures too much to truly want to sell them all. Especially the horses.

“Thanks,” Arthur mumbles, cigarette held between his lips as Charles lights it for him, and one for himself too. The burnt match is thrown to the fire, and the packet tossed with their belongings, saddlebags and packs heaped together like pieces of furniture. 

Sighing with the warm reassurance of inhaled tobacco, Arthur sits more heavily, sinking into himself, and looks up to the sky once more.

“Part of me knew, I reckon,” he says quietly, firelight catching in his exhaled smoke, soft and sparkling. It sounds as though someone has taken sandpaper to his vocal cords. “Somehow. Been wonderin’ a while. Copperin’ my bets I guess.”

Moving to sit beside him again, Charles also looks skyward. The stars still shine despite the haze. “Doesn’t make it hurt less.”

“No,” Arthur agrees. “It don’t.”

Crease in his brow, he lies back down, muscles protesting another long day of riding. Every time he dismounts now it feels like he’s been bucked off a bridge. And hit several trees on the way to the ground. His bones rattle, creaking with a deep ache in his joints, radiating through his torso like rot through wood. The blessed relief of the bath they’d shared, just a few days ago, has become another memory. 

Maybe he’s getting too old for this life. The young Arthur never expected to live past twenty-one.

After a moment, Charles joins him, closer than before, forearms brushing. The night isn't cool, and the fire still burning, yet Arthur is sure it’s Charles himself that makes him feel more than comfortable even out on the open plains, radiating warmth like the sun shines within him. He’s an embrace in human form.

“After I brought you back,” Charles says, and takes a drag of his cigarette, Arthur turning his head to watch his expression. Sidelong, caught in the curve of his lips. “The others were angry. Upset. John was furious.”

“For real?”

“Never seen him like it. Challenged Dutch on all of it. Why he didn’t send someone out to search. How come he was only lost out on that mountain in Ambarino for two days, when you’d been gone much more.”

“Huh. Wonders’ll never.”

He huffs, still derisive, but less so than before. “Always had a mouth on him, but…ain’t heard him turn it to Dutch in a while.”

It had been gratifying for Charles to see the others’ confusion and upset join his own. Though John’s attempts at interacting with Arthur since had been stilted at best, and really fucking unhelpful at worst, it was telling that John had been the most vocal when the truth of Arthur’s unexplained absence had come out. Rather, when Charles had dragged the truth half-dead into camp and laid it out to bleed all over Dutch’s nice clean camp, then refused to allow it to die to save him answering questions. 

“Ain’t like he’d shed tears seein’ me six feet under though,” Arthur says then, grumbling like an old dog without the energy to growl. Tired, more than anything else. “Be glad for the peace’n quiet, knowin’ him.”

Charles makes a displeased sort of noise, and tilts his head to look over, expression vocal. 

“Kidding,” Arthur murmurs. “Mostly.”

Cigarette held within a tight mouth as he inhales, he blows smoke upwards, clouding the night sky as it swirls and dissipates. The slight buzz it leaves in his head is welcome, a more frenetic fog than that of whisky - jittery, like there’s energy behind the heaviness it hangs in him. And it’s a drug that doesn’t turn him into a singer, like whisky, so that’s a bonus. For Charles at least. He’s been maudlin enough lately without getting drunk off his ass just to numb his thoughts.

His hands are grateful for the distraction too.

“Surprised the others...y’know,” he says, and rubs at the scratches on his arm, frowning as the cuts sting, as if just realising it was him that picked the scabs. “Noticed.”

“Sure they did,” Charles murmurs, voice still low, the same tone as when he comforts Taima, confident but soft. “Ladies helped out no end. Hosea sat up with me most nights at first. Otherwise, whole camp fell apart. No one does shit except you.”

Snickering, Arthur snorts on a lungful of tobacco smoke, and coughs as he laughs. “Tell me I’m lying,” Charles adds, matter-of-fact, and smirks at Arthur’s chuckling as he draws on his cigarette, just a quirk of his lips on one side.

“Bad habit,” Arthur says, clearing his throat. “Weren’t so bad when it was just John I was cleanin’ up after… Guess I just kept doin’ it. But- It’s you who does most. Don’t know how we got anythin’ done ‘fore you joined us. Know I’d be dead for sure.”

His lips move, but Charles doesn’t allow himself to smile. “I like keeping busy.”

“You still...glad you did?”

“Hm?”

“Join up with us?”

Looking at him across the small gap between them, Charles tips his head, and the fire light rolls over the prow of his cheekbone like liquid. When his humour fades, it leaves nothing but weariness in Arthur’s expression, he notes, a fleeting cover, masking a lined exhaustion beneath his face, upon which his laughter rests for no more than a moment, dissipating as quickly as the smoke does. He might have suspected Dutch had lied, able to joke about his ordeal as if it doesn’t still torture him, but it makes it no easier to hear. It drags at him, a wire hanger buckling under a heavy coat, shoulders caving in.

“I’m glad,” Charles says, and moves his cigarette to his mouth to free his hand, shifting across to take Arthur’s, and hold it. “A lot’s happened. You’re a strange bunch.”

Arthur snickers again. 

“But I think I found my place.”

“Glad to hear it,” Arthur murmurs, a lilting fondness in his voice, interlocking their fingers by his side.

His smile lasts a moment longer before slipping away, fading from his lips like a pattern in sand, washed by the sea. They’ve always been a strange bunch, he supposes. Two old cons and a pair of unruly sons sure made for a peculiar grouping in the beginning, and that was before the dozen other oddities they collected along the way. Charles is absolutely the most normal, the most well-adjusted, the most human of all of them. The most deserving of the kind of ‘family’ Dutch always claimed their group to be.

Part of him wonders whether there was ever anything familial to be found with Dutch. With the gang. Whether it was all just the wishful thinking of an orphaned child, desperate to belong to something and terrified of ending up alone, now coloured with the rose-tint of reminiscence like a tintype print. It had felt like something important, in the beginning. Something bigger than just the three of them, and the wild-eyed stray whose hanging didn’t quite take to make four. Dutch had always preached, always postured, but he had slept in the dirt beside them then. Hosea still smiled when he spoke.

Another part of him wants to turn himself in to Dutch for even thinking such a thing. Admit he’s not as strong or as certain as he used to be, confess his own mind’s weakness. Beg forgiveness for his doubt. There’s a disconnect in him, a faulty wire, sparking between what was and what is, the before and the now, and Arthur can’t be sure if it’s a new concern, or an old one simply dislodged, turning from a quiet unidentifiable niggle into a fully-fledged fear. The feeling roils in his stomach like a bad meal, bubbling, a swamp with guilt swimming on the surface like scuds of algae. 

Of course Dutch was coming for him. Charles just didn’t know, or perhaps there was some misunderstanding between them. Dutch wouldn’t leave him. He would have known what to do. Dutch would have had a plan.

The present part of him glances to his left, at Charles stargazing, his profile warm and solid like baked clay. Both fire and moonlight press gently to the bridge of his nose, the purse of his lips, translucent kisses glowing on his skin. Frowning, Arthur clings to his cigarette, drinking from it like he hasn’t had water in days, fingers trembling around the paper. He looks away.

Perhaps that’s why Dutch _wasn’t_ looking for him. Perhaps he has seen how Arthur thinks, how he _feels_, and knows he has outlived whatever use he once had. Seen his creaking bones and grey hairs and doubting thoughts, seen this unfamiliar fragile optimism colour his decisions, seen the childish comfort gifted by another man’s gentle hands, and found Arthur unfit for purpose. Perhaps he didn’t want him rescued. Perhaps he knows that sometimes, in order to save the whole, you must amputate the infected limb.

Left hand held still in Charles’ right, Arthur smokes in silence, staring up at the assembled stars, clustered together in their loose patterns, though truly not close at all. Collected in the same sky like curios in a cabinet, an inch apart and light years from each other, each one of millions yet also completely alone.

“Strange bunch,” he says absently, and grunts a brittle chuckle, humourless as some terminal illness. Charles tips his head to look at him. The moon slips from his face. “Lately, I…”

He shuts his eyes. The firelight catches beneath his eyelashes, casting spider shadows on his skin. “When John left, before,” he says, and pauses to bring his cigarette to his lips, voice trodden beneath the heel of the tobacco, muffled and grating. “Left for a whole damn _year_ and then- Waltzed on back like nothin’ happened. Y’know what Dutch did?”

His exhale is a streak of grey around his mouth. Charles watches him. “Nothing,” he snaps. “Exactly nothing. Not a goddamn thing. Didn’t even look at him different. Didn’t say nothin’ to him, didn’t ever hold him to no account, didn’t remind him we got- We got a _code_. If you’re out, you’re out, you can’t just-”

His breath is sharp. Eyes shut again, he inhales his cigarette.

There was a time when he vied for Dutch’s attention. And affection. Desperate for some semblance of approval from the man that had raised him kicking from the cruel earth, given him a bone upon which to gnaw his anger, his hungry grief, pointed him in the direction of easy retribution. He wonders when that approval had stopped being a welcome prize, a treasure, and had become nothing but scraps thrown for him to chew on with the others, the gristle of a high horse Dutch had taken to riding instead of sharing with the starving faithful. When had it changed? Had it changed at all, or was Arthur himself the difference he couldn’t spot?

“Dutch always spoilt him. Let him pick and choose,” he says, rumbling under his usual voice, a warning polyphony, like the smell before a thunderstorm, the thick pressure in the air. His frown deepens, constricts. “And I ain’t- I ain’t jealous, or bitter, or nothin’, I don’t give a fuck what kinda bullshit they got goin’ between them, I just- I _wish_...Dutch’d treat folk equal. Like he’s always preachin’ and waxin’ on. Y’know?”

“I know,” Charles replies, soft.

“I’unno if I just didn’t notice before or what, but- That got me. Still gets me. Makes me damn mad. And lately I seem to be noticin’ it more and more.”

Again, he drinks from his cigarette, expression only softening the slightest amount with the glow of the paper as he inhales. Breath held for a moment, he sighs, and flicks ash to the side. “Time gone by, Dutch’d hide me black and blue for tryin’ to be...somethin’ different than what he wanted. What he _expected_ of us,” he says, quieter. It’s laden with the same heavy undercurrent, thrumming in his chest. Charles’ nostrils flare. “If I ever pulled what John did? If I _ever-_ Hell, he’da gave me to Colm himself.”

Expression tight enough to make his lip curl, Charles says nothing. Even hearing Colm’s name sits uncomfortably in his stomach, whether Arthur’s joking or not. There’s no humour in his voice if he is, stark and fragile, laced with pain behind the anger.

“I thought…” he mumbles, and sucks his cigarette. “I really thought...he’d come for me. I thought-”

Between them, Charles squeezes his hand. Arthur loses his breath, and stays silent for a moment more.

“That was all the hope I had.”

Watching him, Charles can see the lines in Arthur’s face, sagging beneath the weight of truth, of memory rattling bars within the confines of his mind. It’s easy to remember the swollen mass of his blackened eyes in the weeks after his abduction, their bloodshot whites, stark and familiar in Charles’ own memory. Less easy is reconciling the idea that Arthur’s one hope during the ordeal was for something that wouldn’t ever have come to be. Despite how agonisingly simple that hope was. That Dutch would look for him. That a man who calls him ‘son’ would not abandon him.

Silent, Charles adjusts his grip on his weak hand. Arthur shuts his eyes. His fingers are clumsy when he brings his cigarette to his lips, shaking and fidgety, and his eyes remain closed for a long moment as Charles watches him, as if somehow he can shut it all away again now that it’s been addressed aloud, barricade his world with the blissful ease of ignorance.

Perhaps it would have been kinder to lie.

“Arthur,” Charles says, as if speaking to himself, a whisper above the background flicker of the fire. Arthur’s gaze resurfaces, and shifts to him, deep lines between his brows. “You are more than your ties to him. To the gang.” He can’t bring himself to say Dutch’s name, clinging to Arthur’s eyes, refusing to let them fall from his hold. “You...exist outside him. You are more than _him_.”

For a long second, Arthur stares across at him, firelight wobbling in his eyes like an oil slick on water, a kaleidoscope blur of viscous colour. His heart thunders, and he wants nothing but to lean across and kiss Charles, drown in that sincerity until he believes every word. Every bewildering, beautiful affirmation that he is somehow _other_ than Dutch, somehow separate and distinct and whole without him, and that Charles can _see_ it. Can reach it.

Eyeline darting to Charles’ mouth, he swallows.

And falters. Frowning, he looks away again, and an ugly flippancy bubbles up to fill the yawning hollow in his rib cage, smothering his voice.

“I’m a workhorse,” he replies, gaze averted. “And not even a good one no more.”

“Arthur-”

“Some worn old nag, I am. Wouldn’t even make good eatin’ for vultures.”

Charles raises both eyebrows. Noticing, Arthur clicks his tongue. “Don’t make eyes like that, let me be dramatic for ten seconds.”

“That isn’t dramatic, that’s a whole damn pantomime. And you’re a horrible actor.”

With a snort, Arthur chuckles. The fire light floods his face, round cheeks and grin bright enough that it could fool anyone that didn’t know him better, and Charles admires though he knows it will soon fade again, like seeing a straggling flower bloom in front of him, unable to help his own fleeting smile. He takes a drag on his cigarette, watching while Arthur’s amusement still lingers, and doesn’t stop when Arthur notices.

“You’re no one’s workhorse,” Charles says simply, holding his gaze. “Especially not...Dutch Van der Linde’s.”

After a moment, Arthur sighs, and looks away. The smile drifts from his mouth, blown into the smoke stream. “Sometimes, I just… I don’t get it. I don’t get _him_,” he says, frown lodging between his eyebrows as he considers his words, the weight of them taking up residence in furrowed wrinkles on his forehead.

“I love Dutch, owe him my life ten times over. Likely follow him to the gates of Hell if he asked. But sometimes I just- I don’t- Well…” His voice follows his smile, lost in the air between them, devoured by the fire or the endless dark above, trailing through the buffalograss on the breeze.

When he brings his hand up to take the next drag, all that remains is an uneasy exhaustion, like his whole body is drained, the furnace coughing without fuel. “Maybe I just ain’t meant to understand him,” he continues, “God knows he’s smarter than I’ll ever be.”

Charles presses his lips together. He bites his urge to retort.

“Then I look at Hosea, for some kinda comparison, and- I love him proper. Like… Like a father. He’s kind, decent, raised me like I was his own and not trash they scooped outta some gutter. Wouldn’t mind bein’ like him in my old age, if I ever get there, which ain’t altogether likely.”

“He’s a good man. I see plenty of him in you.”

“He’s a con and a thief and a tricky old bastard,” Arthur replies, and chuckles, fondness colouring his voice. “But he’s the best man I ever known. Dutch is...different. Sometimes he’s the best man I known too, but… Of late, he’s mostly somethin’ else I don’t got words for.”

For a long moment, Charles is silent, and Arthur notices his lack of expression as he stares up at the stars beside him, and how it’s become much less common for him to see Charles’ face left intentionally blank. He keeps his emotions close, but the kind of stoic slate he presents to others is seen far less often in Arthur’s company nowadays. It’s a crafted, deliberate thing - Arthur can recognise it now - a mask of sorts. Which, in its own way, gives Arthur an answer to a question he hadn’t asked. By virtue of the obvious absence of opinion in Charles’ face.

He hums then, pensive, smoking his cigarette. Arthur watches him. “Do you ever want to leave?” Charles asks, voice heavy with smoke as if coated in tar itself, thick in his throat. His head tips towards Arthur, eyes dark. “Just...pick a direction. Keep riding?”

Arthur’s cigarette is already nothing but a stub, but he still holds it as it glows and crumbles, threatening his thumb and finger. “Sure,” he says quietly, noting that with only the fire light to see by, Charles’ pupils are so wide it looks like his whole iris is black. “More often than I should, to tell the truth.”

Taking a new drag, Charles exhales smoke through his nose, and Arthur is almost close enough to breathe it in. Is there any situation in which he won’t want to kiss him?

“Wanna...go back west,” he says, looking back to the stars lest he give in, feeling Charles’ eyes remain on his face, watching his mouth as he speaks. He throws his cigarette end towards the fire. “Just...me’n the animals. And the rest of the folk that don’t fit nowhere. Where there’s still some wild left. Somethin’ free.”

Charles hums, agreeing.

“Sometimes bein’ here, livin’ this kinda life. Followin’ Dutch, I… S’all I ever known but... Feel like a roped horse, y’know?”

“I know,” Charles murmurs, following his gaze upwards. 

The smoke clears from his view after a second, and he tries to find patterns in the stars, looking for some order amongst the chaotic sky. He can identify a fair few constellations, recognises their familiar shapes, ancient names he can’t remember being told. His mother had given him so many words. While she could. If only he could remember her voice when she’d taught him the stories of the stars. Perhaps they’d seem less distant then.

Another breath, and the black expanse above them fills with grey again, drifting slowly into nothing. “Not sure I remember a time when...I didn’t want to _run_,” he says, thoughtful. He pauses for a second, swallowing against the hesitance in him, the weight of Arthur’s gaze from his side. “Even when I was far away from...my father. His...ghosts. I still ran, and kept running.”

“How old were you? When...you left?”

“Thirteen.”

With Charles’ exhale, smoke thick around his mouth, Arthur breathes in.

“All I’ve done since is run. Find a group, breathe for a couple months, start running again. Never really known what from.”

“Maybe it ain’t from,” Arthur says, head turned to look at him. “Maybe it’s somethin’ to run to. That you just...ain’t found yet.”

A small huff, and Charles smiles. “Maybe it is.”

He finishes his cigarette in content silence, throwing the end to the fire and stroking Arthur’s hand beside him with his thumb, a rhythmic reassurance. Arthur sighs, and looks across at him again, studying, meeting his eyes when Charles turns his head to look. “You wanna run from me?” he asks, quiet, his weak hand unmoving in Charles’ hold.

Charles keeps his gaze. “No,” he replies, intimately soft. “Sometimes I want to...run from how strong I feel. It...isn’t something I’m used to. But not from you. First time in a long time, actually.”

Almost too quick to catch, Arthur smiles. His gaze dips to Charles’ mouth, as if to make sure the words are truly coming from his lips. “I want to run _with_ you, I think.” Charles is still looking at him, sincerity almost painful to bear, aching in Arthur’s chest.

“With me? Where’d we go?” he murmurs, transfixed.

“Wouldn’t matter. Wherever we wanted.”

The corner of Arthur’s mouth twitches. “Us two together?”

“Mhm. Just you and me. Taima and Magpie. Ride and...just keep riding. See the West again.”

“Free and lawless,” Arthur says quietly.

It’s another wonderful fairytale. A fantasy for another world, another life. Men like Charles deserve that kind of life.

Men like him don’t get anything close. Dutch taught him that a long time ago; men like Arthur Morgan don’t fit in the world outside. He’s too mean, too dumb, too wild, too _much_ to ever find a place in the wide country beyond the borders of their ragtag little family, their protection against the settler society that cast them away, that rejected them, that _hurt_ them. This _civilised_ world isn’t built for him. He’s a thief, a thug, a fool, a fuck-up. Only understands one language, and it isn’t the one the neighbours speak. 

Souls that can’t survive in the brave new world are fast running out of frontier to escape to, tiptoeing the shaking boards beneath their feet, waiting for the trapdoor to drop. 

Arthur looks back to the stars. It’s so easy to dream, with Charles by his side. Adventuring wherever their whim takes them, living free, for themselves. Running with Charles for as long as the road is, taking odd jobs, working for their own keep. Settling down when his bones grow old. Older. A ranch. A cottage. A dog, a handful of chickens. Honest living.

It’d be easy to ride out and keep going. The gang hadn’t mattered to John before, why should it matter to him? Dutch hadn’t noticed the last time he’d disappeared; would he even care if they never came back? Would he try to find them? Track them down? Haul them back to face him, to face the fate afforded to deserters, to betrayers of Dutch’s trust.

With a tiny incline of his head, he glances over to where the horses are grazing. Easy. Easy to pretend it’s possible. Easy to fool himself into thinking he’ll get out of this game alive one day. It’d be easy to catch the stars in his hand, if he could just reach far enough.

With a wan sigh, he shuts his eyes, tearing his thoughts away from the horizon. Charles is watching him - he can feel his gaze - but Arthur can’t meet it, sure he’ll be able to see the obvious shame, the grim reality that he’ll never be able to live that dream with him written within the lines of his expression. Arthur resigned himself to his lot many years ago. No amount of desperate wishing or unlikely love affairs will change the life gifted to him, and that he grasped with eager hands.

Silent, he shifts gingerly across their blanket bed, and curls hesitantly into Charles’ side. He rests his palm on his chest, head nestled beneath Charles’ chin, and only exhales when one gentle hand comes to rest on his back, wrapped around him like the wide sky around the Earth, keeping him alight even in darkness. “If we ever get outta this mess from Blackwater,” Arthur says, muffled slightly by his cheek being pressed on Charles’ collarbone. “Alive, that is. I’d… I’d like that. Runnin’ with you. Ridin’ together.”

Charles leans up, and kisses his head. He holds him close, both arms surrounding him. “I’d like it too.”

“If you’ll still have me then, of course,” Arthur says, and huffs a self-conscious sort of chuckle, lifting his head from Charles’ shoulder to meet his gaze.

The fire glows in the ends of his hair, illuminating the edges of him, the silhouette of one Arthur Morgan, sum of his assembled parts. And Charles looks at his face, his lopsided smile, knowing in the deepest pit of him that Arthur can’t leave Dutch, can’t escape the prison he helped build for himself, an incarceration he needs like he needs his skin, the only thing close to a family he has ever known. No matter the fear in him, the exhaustion, the desperate longing for release from something he can’t put into words nor explain even to himself - Arthur is tied to the gang with threads that make up his very fabric.

Loyalty. It is his bones, his blood, his warp and weft, and Dutch the stitching edging every inch.

Charles knows that.

One day, perhaps. Stranger things have happened. Stitching can be unpicked.

His eyes smile, sinking into the fragile blue of Arthur’s, content enough just to be with him in the present rather than worry for the future, to share in the night with him. Lips turned up as he touches his face, his free hand strokes the embers in his hair, brushing it back from his forehead. “Always,” he says, and brings him down to kiss him, as midnight smothers the Heartlands’ fire. “Always.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> that's all folks! gosh this has been a behemoth. i just needed arthur to have some respite, before the storm that's coming.
> 
> fun fact: i used a website to map the visible stars for the 20th august 1899 at midnight UTC, at coordinates 40.81ºN, 103.86ºW, which is aroundabouts the middle of the [Pawnee National Grassland](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pawnee_National_Grassland), on the Colorado Eastern Plains. the constellations arthur can see above him would have been visible in Eastern Colorado on that night at that time in 1899.   
admittedly my US geography isn't the best, but thanks to several reddit threads, the RDR2 wiki, and some poetic licence, i'm figuring the Heartlands of New Hanover and the Great Plains of West Elizabeth are sort of vaguely equivalent to the real Great Plains region, just different examples of climate and prairie and such like. i figure the Heartlands is a semiarid shortgrass prairie, at least around the Twin Stacks between the uplands around the Dakota, and the wetter lowlands of Emerald Ranch. the vegetative zones of the Pawnee Grasslands match well with what we see in game around the Heartlands, so i hope it's an understandable if not entirely scientifically accurate location to base my writing on. isn't it neat we can look up the stars folks would have seen on one random night in 1899? what a world we live in.
> 
> anywho, thank you all for your wonderful comments, your well wishes for my mum, and for being on this looong journey with me. i appreciate every one of you, every comment and little detail you guys notice, that i don't even realise i've written most of the time. your support and enjoyment are the most precious gifts. thank you. onto the next one! i'll see you there ♥


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